


Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?

by GentleStorm



Category: Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs, Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Adam has a degree in fixing people, Bran Cornick is officially done with witches, Bran goes to therapy, Bran seriously deals with all of his issues, Burn Bright spoilers, F/M, Hiding Medical Issues, Leah dies in this, Medical Trauma, Multi, No instant romance here, Not really discussed but it does happen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, So much talking., Talking, Torture, We don't stan Bran/Mercy here, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:27:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26133439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GentleStorm/pseuds/GentleStorm
Summary: Bran in the space of a week loses his mate and gets witch bound to a woman, Ash Cassidy, who wants to drop kick him into an ocean. Ash wants nothing to do with her mate, except get paid for getting him back safe and sound. However, through a series of rather unfortunate events, they find themselves becoming friends despite the circumstances.
Relationships: Adam Hauptman/Mercy Thompson, Ariana/Samuel Cornick, Bran Cornick/Leah Cornick, Bran Cornick/Original Character(s), Charles Cornick/Anna Latham, Kyle Brooks/Warren Smith
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37





	1. In my defense, I have none (for never leaving well enough alone)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I Believe (that the words that he told you are not your grave)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/545191) by [GentleStorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GentleStorm/pseuds/GentleStorm). 



Third POV

Bran very carefully doesn’t look up at the witch. Leah is dead before she hits the ground, and has been for quite some time. He’s glad he tied all of his wolves to Samuel, Charles, and Adam as soon as he was taken. He still doesn’t look up because if he did, he would kill everybody in the room.

The woman next to him doesn’t move. She’s too smart to want to draw more attention to herself. She keeps her eyes on the witch, and says very casually, “you fucked up.”

“Silent,” the witch hisses. The ground begins to shake. Bran likes to say that he has no magic left, that his mother tied it all up in knots. Bran likes to lie. The woman, Bran doesn’t remember her name and it would be bad to know it now, is still.

“I mean, I never wanted to die at the ends of a witch, but I didn’t think I’d have to trade that up for a werewolf.” The woman starts twisting her shackles, trying to get leverage. She knows the scariest thing in the room is not the witch, never has been.

“I said _be silent_ ,” the witch snarls. Black blood begins to cover Leah’s body.

“I mean we’re all gonna be dead in a minute anyway.” The woman calmly, breaks her thumb to slip her hands free. She can’t do anything about the chain around her ankle. It’s been put on tight enough to cut into her ankle, drawing blood.

“I will cut out your tongue and-” and Bran lets go of the control he’s had on for the past thousand years and longer. He grins as the collar snaps open and the witch dies underneath his paws. The woman looks up at him brightly. Her own chains snap open.

“You good man?” she asks. She gets up slowly. The witch had cut into her last night. She had been desperate to keep all the attention on her, and not on him or Leah. Bran will think that much later. For now, he has only the desire to consume anything around him. “Peace,” she says, and he feels it. Omega. “Peace upon you, Deathbringer. The witch is dead.”

It’s the truth, but it doesn’t touch him. He pounces on her. She falls back, beneath his weight. His jaws clamp shut around her throat, but not just. She punts his nose the way one would a shark, and he hesitates just long enough for her to throw him off. He growls at her, but she doesn’t attack. So, the beast gets up and goes to see their dead mate. Leah had been brave in the end, in the face of a horrible death.

The woman gets up stiffly. “How the fuck am I going to get out of this one?” she mutters. And if Bran was a hair stronger, he’d kill her.

* * *

*Four Weeks Ago*

“Hello, you’ve reached the Cassidy Detective and Photography Agency. They wander and we get the photos.” Ash was a little tired of taking pictures of cheaters. It’s always _I didn’t mean to cheat on you, he tripped and fell into my vagina_ and _I love my kids, I would never abandon them_.

“Hi, my name is Charles Cornick. Adam Hauptman recommended your services.” She knew Hauptman was gonna come back and bite her. Repressing her groan, she decides to hear the man out. This what she gets for getting his kid out of a jam a while back. Some military moron had taken Jesse Hauptman, and Ash had stepped in before heads could role-for a fee, of course.

Ash kicked her feet up on her desk, knowing the werewolf could hear it. “Hmm. What’s the case?”

“Missing person.” Great. At least, Cornick isn’t investigating his mate or something.

“Name?” She has a pen ready to jot it down.

“Bran Cornick.” Well, the pen’s not needed. She’s familiar, to say the least.

There was a long pause where Ash considers how she should have become a nun or a baker. “I’ll want five hundred up front, another five hundred upon delivery of the body, and the guarantee that all damages will be covered.”

“Fine,” there’s a growl in his voice. Cornick is a formidable hunter. “His mate, Leah Cornick was also taken.”

Charles and Ash have never met, but she knows who and what he is. She thinks she’d like him if he didn’t kill her first. “All right. Last known location?”

“Chicago.” Ash winces. She knows, as most do these days, that Charles has an _issue_ with Chicago. This will certainly not help. “The scent went cold after three days. When can you get here?”

“Can you send me your GPS coordinates of the nearest alleyway?” She rattles off her phone number and immediately gets a text back. She sighs and plops her feet on the table, writes a note for her partner so he doesn’t kill her. “I’ll be there in ten.”

“Ten?” she hears as the phone goes dead. Ash gets up, stretches, crackles her knuckles. Normally, she’d take a plane or bus, but when the alpha of the free world goes missing, things are going to go to shit. She grabs her go back, packed with a first aid kit, navigation equipment, and some spare clothes. She belts on a sword. Ash doesn’t like guns, even though she’s good with them.

Ash looks around the rest of the office. It’d been lunch time. The place is a little hole in the wall in London, though her accent doesn’t support that. She kneels on the floor, traces a circle that had been cut into the stone and earth. “Please let me live through this,” she murmurs. “I mean, I’ve done some stupid things before, but this is beyond the pale. Light guide me.” She summons the circle to live and steps through the portal.

She almost collides with a very large and angry man. The stink of his rage permeates the air, and she almost takes a step back. Ash doesn’t, because werewolves are touchy at the best of time, and that would most definitely set him off. It is never wise to give ground before a possible enemy, she reminds herself. He’s beautiful, she notes distractedly, even when he’s ready to tear somebody’s throat out. Not her type at all, but she does recognize him as Charles Cornick.

“You Cassidy?” he asks, his voice a growl. A small woman, pressed a hand on his shoulder, but his anger didn’t subside.

“Hmm. Ash Cassidy. You get my number off Hauptman?” she asks, looking around. They’re standing in an alleyway, out of the way. Nobody would have notice the portal in Madison Square Gardens, but better safe than sorry. Charles doesn’t bother answering. Ash doesn’t let that get her down, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. “I assume you talked to the local alpha and ran down leads?”

“Came up empty. Last we know is he ate dinner at the restaurant across the street three weeks back, and now he’s gone.”

“Damn big balls to take the Marrok.” Charles hisses at her. She shrugs. “Just ‘cause I’m in London doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”

“You’re from London,” the woman asks idly, trying to take pressure off her mate. “I’m Anna Cornick.”

“Not really,” Ash says. “Nice to meet you. Can you get us in there?” she asks, pointing at the restaurant.

_She will kill us_ , Brother Wolf insists. Charles doesn’t disagree. The woman isn’t scared of him. Only the stupid and powerful aren’t scared of him, and this woman doesn’t strike him as stupid. Ash is five foot nothing with red hair, freckles, an energy that would be more at home on a college campus than a man hunt. Adam hadn’t known what she was, and told him as much on the phone. Leah’s death had sent them all into a panic, and now there was a stranger in their midest.

“Yes,” Charles says, and takes them through the restaurant. He’s holding onto it by a thread. The last time he’d been this worried was when Leah might have been a traitor. With Leah’s death, he is now the most dominant, sane wolf on the continent, and possibly the world. He will be responsible for killing Bran. And he would like to do it before his da starts killing innocents.

Ash trods after him, wise enough to let him stay between her and his mate. She breathes in the air of the restaurant. It’s upscaled. There is a heavy scent of expensive, not necessarily, good food and wine. It takes her a long moment to sort through the scents. She blinks at Charles. “I apologize formally from my house to yours.” The man’s eyes get more intent. His shoulders stiffen. “I know who took your alpha, and this one is free. From my house to yours.”

“Free? What does that mean?” Anna asks, but the strange woman is already leading them out of the restaurant.

“It means it’s her fault.” Charles stares her down, and Ash drops her eyes after a few seconds. Brother Wolf doesn’t quite relax, but he stops being as present.

Ash shakes her head. “No. But it is my responsibility. The witch that has your wolf-” Charles could not help his growl- “has taken others. She will seek to imprison his mind and drive him to be her pet.”

“Name?” he growls.

Ash shrugs. “I do not know it, and if I did, I would not speak it. To speak such evil is to call it forth.” She leads the way out of the restaurant. “She might have already accomplished her task,” she warns Charles.

“He killed her mate. It is likely that we will all die beneath his paws.”

“Yeah. Well. Maybe not. Do you have a hotel?” Charles nods and takes them to it. He calls his brother and Adam once he’s there. Boyd is there. His head is bowed and ready to die. Ash touches his shoulder gently. “Are you going to kill this man?” she asks.

“Not at the moment.”

“Good. Don’t waste good.” She looks at the phone. “My name is Ash Cassidy. I know the witch who has your wolf. It will take time retrieving him from her, and I will not get him back whole.”

“How do you know her?” Adam asks over the phone. He’d been scouring for Bran and meeting with military contacts. Without any leads, he’d given her name to Charles, because he’d been in meetings upon meetings with military people that gave him nothing. Frustration doesn’t even come close to describing how he feels.

“It’s a long story and I’m not going to tell it to you.” Ash gets out two burner phones. She tosses one to Charles. “Call me on this. I wouldn’t be too worried if you don’t hear from me. I’ll call you though once I track her down. Last I heard she was working out of the salt flats.”

“I’m going with you,” Charles growls.

“We’re going with you,” Anna corrects.

Ash shakes her head. “This witch does very well at turning wolves. You would be a liability.” Charles grabs her by the throat and slams her against the wall. Ash splays her fingers and arms wide. “I’m not a threat,” she chokes out. Charles growls in her face. “But the witch will kill you or turn you, and I can only deal with one insane wolf at a time. Besides,” she adds, breaking his hold easily and twisting her fingers in a lazy loop. “It’s not like you have a choice,” she says cheerfully, and she’s gone.

She lands in the salt flats and nearly falls flat on her face. “Ow, ow, ow, ow. That fucking hurt,” she grumbles, biting her lip. “Next time, I’ll just kill the asshole and use that to fuel the spell instead of my own energy.”

Ash shakes her limbs out. “Go and rescue Hauptman’s daughter, that’ll be fun. There will be no consequences for being the good guy for once. Jesus Christ, Cassidy, what’d you expect?” she asks herself, picking her pack back up. She looks around, using a hand to block out the sunlight. It’s winter. Cold and hungry. She shivers a little in her coat. At least she’d been wearing something sufficient enough for Chicago, even if it was a little wanting in fucking Utah. She continues grumbling to herself as she starts across the barren landscape.

Ash doesn’t bother to hide her approach. Maybe it’s cockiness or stupidity, but she knows the witch would have sensed her portal. “This is one of your worse ideas,” she lectures herself, “and that’s really saying something. Remember the giant snake in Brazil? Or the time you scaled the Great Wall? What about Myanmar? But noooo, you just had to pull the tail of a werewolf, and not just any werewolf, you went for the head honcho. George is right. Maybe I do have a death wish.” She trudges up the mountain to the arch. “Honestly,” she mutters, taking in how fast night is falling.

Ash growls a little bit, but instead of pressing on, she sets up camp for the night. It’s unlikely they’d kill the Marrok before dawn, and she needs rest if she’s going to defeat a witch. She places runic circles, and cooks some food on her rocket stove. What she hadn’t expected was that it was a trio of witches. She has the thought of _well, maybe Chuckie had a point_ before they knock her clean on her ass and stun her.

* * *

*Current Time*

“Please.” It’s a demand, not a plead to be heard. Ash knows where this road will go. She knows it. “Get your feet off the dashboard.”

They’re driving along empty roads, and Ash managed to win the argument of who drives, surprising both her and Bran. Course, at the time, Bran hadn’t exactly been able to drive. Ash, herself, is more than a little unsteady too, which is why Bran’s feet bothers her more than it should.

Bran helpfully wipes mud on it as he removes his feet. Ash checks her rearview mirror and turns up the NPR station to the other’s ire. Ash reaches down to the go-to mug and gets another gulp of coffee. She does her best to not think about Leah’s body taking up space in the trunk. It’s been cremated at least and packed up into a small metal box. The trio of witches are dead. Apparently they had beef with Bran, and that’s that.

“I could have gotten myself back,” Bran says mildly.

“Nope. I don’t need your sons coming after me for a contract violation.”

“You signed a contract? You?”

“Hey, I resemble that remark.” Ash sighs. “It’s only an hour and a half drive. Drop you off at the airport. And after that, I get to go to Portland.”

“So, not Portland?”

“You going to tell them?” she asks, finally getting to the thing she wants to talk about. He doesn’t have to ask her what she means. Bran looks over at her, and then back out the window. She’s not-she’s less stupid than she was, and more skitish of him. He regrets scaring her. He has a gaping wound and she’s doing her best to not press into it.

“No,” he says slowly. “My sons might figure it out, but I wasn’t going to tell anybody.”

She breathes out, and he knows it’s from relief. That’s a reasonable reaction, he tells himself. It’s only out of desperation that they’re tied together. Neither of them wants this, but it is preferable to him killing everybody on the continent. He doesn’t know if Anna could bring him back now. She almost hadn’t been able to last time. Only Samuel had known how close it’d been, and he’d had a stable mate bond then.

Ash’s hand shakes a little bit with the coffee and then steadies. She’s too skinny, Bran notes. It is a surprise to learn that she can be quiet, and doesn’t try to draw him into conversation in the next two hours or so. She’d managed to contact Charles at a rest stop and get tickets through him. The airline even took care of Leah’s ashes. Charles and the others had allowed her the honor of driving him to Adam’s after the plane. He’d gone along with it because Ash had been pushed enough the last few weeks.

“I am-I am sorry,” she says, pulling up in Adam’s driveway. “For not getting there soon enough.”

“Sure I can’t convince you to stay?” he asks. He’s over the shock of the bond. “You’ll be in even greater danger now.”

She shakes her head. “Better I’m not.” She meets Bran’s eyes without feeling the need to look away. She’s one of about five people on the planet who can manage it. Ash doesn’t do it often. “You’re not the only monster in the car, Bran.”

They get out. Ash has more trouble with it from her injuries. He hadn’t killed her, but he took a great chunk of her leg off and then the witches hadn’t helped matters. She meets Samuel and Charles on the lawn. He can feel the beast close at hand, and pushes it back down. His eyes have finally gone back to human.

Charles looks between the pair, recognition sparking in his eyes. “I see now why you waived the fee,” he says, voice dry as sand. Ash flinches and then glares at him. It’s not like she asked for this.

“Charles,” there’s a growl in Bran’s voice. His son doesn’t duck his head, but does look away.

“Not my choice,” Ash says. “But I’ll be out of your hair. This concludes our transaction. Bran.” She nods at the other man, and hands over Leah’s ashes.

Ash gets back into the car and drives away. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should-driving away from her mate.

It doesn’t burn, the way the witch’s magic had. Wolf mating are supposed to be wolf magic alone, but the witch hadn’t gotten the message. She did in the end when she died. But first she had tried to twist Bran into hers, and Ash out of desperation, had found a way to keep everybody from not dying. She has a feeling that that’s not going to fly with Chuckie, and would like to get out of the state before that happens.

But because she’s never been good at leaving well enough alone, she goes to Missoula. It’s not like this had ever happened before, anyway. Ash is just being smart, keeping an eye on things. She holes up in a motel and keeps to used bookstores for a couple of weeks. Ash doesn’t know what to do now. She faced her monster and it didn’t break her, not in the way she thought it would. She can feel Bran at the back of her mind, skulking around, trying to not bother her.

If she had a heart, she’d find him some pretty twenty thing and cut him lose. Instead he got bound up in a wolf that’s not, and told that they couldn't be together. She turns another page in _The Martian_ and rubs at the scars around her throat that Bran gave her. It’s winter in Montana properly now, and she’s happy to be indoors and out of the ice storm outside. She thumbs the book that’s mostly about loneliness and survival against all odds. _What would Watney do?_ She wonders. Probably not get vaguely attached to an asshole. Eventually Ash goes back to her motel.

She paces up and down, mulling it all over. She doesn’t regret the bond, mostly because she’s pragmatic in all things. If she hadn’t bonded to Bran, she’d be dead. The only thing that might’ve stopped that monster is a silver bullet shot over a very long distance, and that hadn’t been a guarantee. She sighs to herself and starts flipping through the books she bought. Ash is tired of puzzling over the whole thing for the last two weeks. She needs a case, any case, no matter how small.

It’s not her fault that the case in question puts her in Tri-Cities again not three days later. Not her fault at all. Ash takes a moment to wonder if she was a cat in a previous life and accept that her fate will be much the same, but at least she’ll have satisfaction.

“500 up front. Another 500 upon delivery,” she tells the vampire. She wonders idly if she should start wearing a cross, and which dumb fuck decided to steal the Mystery Machine.

“Done,” the vampire says. His name is Stefan, and Ash can’t get over the idea of a vampire owning a bus. It’s been long enough that she can tell that Bran is in Aspen, and she’s happier for it. The case should only take a week or so, and then she’d be back to London.

Adam tracks her to the most recent motel a couple of hours later. Stefan must’ve called him. Ash doesn’t really know if she’s become famous or not, and would very much like to not become famous anytime soon.

“I’ve been a good person,” she tells the alpha, not waiting for him to start in on what will definitely be a lecture. “I am a good person. I rescue kittens from trees and help elderly cross streets. I do not deserve dealing with your paranormal bullshit. All I did was answer an ad on Craigslist from a guy. I didn’t know he was a vamp and I certainly didn’t realize he was from Tri-Cities.” She rolls her eyes and corrects. “Okay, so I knew he was from Tri-Cities, but come on? The money was good.”

“You’re getting an awfully bad habit of interfering in my city,” Adam says slowly. “Something might bite back.”

“Thanks,” she mutters sarcastically. “Look, this, this investigative stuff I’m good at. It’s one of the few things I am, and because things are getting weird, my cases get weird.”

“You’re a werewolf,” he says, certain.

“Sure,” she says, but it’s not agreement.

“Without a pack,” he continues. “That means you’re my problem.”

Her eyes flash. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she says, cooly. “I am nobody’s problem but my own and those who want to hurt folk. If that sounds like you, then we are going to have a problem. You get that?”

If Adam had been a touch less confident, he would take that as a threat. Instead, he considers her. She’s not flashing teeth at her or acting aggressive with her body. She’s terrified of him, deep done to her bones, terrified of him. Adam takes a few steps back, which pisses her off more.

“You’re an omega,” he says, and suddenly more of Bran’s idiocy makes sense. Ash doesn’t act it at all. He’s met Anna, and seen her in action. Ash feels and acts dominant. But she stops looking at his jaw and meets his eyes square on, holding them in a way that nobody does, except Bran and Mercy. And Jesse. And-

Then she flashes teeth at him. “Sure am, darling,” she says in a campy voice, and it reminds Adam of Kyle at his most I-will-piss-you-off-and-sue-you-for-thousands mode. She appears a lot less harmless all of a sudden too. Before, he’d put her at dominant but only just.

“Let’s start this again,” he says. If he knew her better, he would apologize. “I would like you to not kill anybody in my city.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem.” she agrees. “Just gonna return a lost bus to a vamp and be on my way out of town. It’ll barely bother you at all.”

Adam’s jaw flexes a bit. He doesn’t like her or the trouble that he can smell brewing. “You do that,” he says, but then adds, “if you need help-”

“Nah-” she interrupts. “If I need help than-” she sighs, and the energy drops a bit. “Sorry,” she says suddenly. “I wasn’t-if I need help, I’ll call you, all right?” Ash had remembered that this man wasn’t her enemy, and was touchy because it had taken her four weeks to get Bran out. Four. Damn. Weeks. He has a right to be pissed at her.

Adam takes a hesitant step toward her. Ash breathes out. “I’m not-thank you for getting Bran out.” She nods sharply. “Ash, thank you.” He means it. Like most werewolves, Ash can tell when somebody is lying. “You ended it the best way you could.”

She laughs even though it’s not very funny. “You mean how I saved the Marrok to me? Even though I’m terrified of him? Yeah, that’s a good ending, Hauptman.” She collects her keys and bag. “Gotta go and do a thing.” She brushes past him. “Lock the door on your way out.” She hops down the steps and books it before Adam can catch up.

“Ash,” she hears. “Be careful.”

“Always am,” she calls back.

Twenty-four hours, she regrets everything. She’s crawling through a crypt and not happy about it. Stefan is behind her, which normally would be just fine, but not today. Her PTSD is flaring up, she’s hungry, and there’s a vampire two inches from her ass. “I’m gonna join Cantrip,” she mutters. “I could pass well enough.”

“Bet they got dental,” Stefan says, and because he’s irritating, he’s not breathing hard when he says it either.

“Probably do, being the feds and all,” she whispers back. “Is the van really worth this?” she groans. They end up in a barn. It’s a little outside of Pasco. And that’s when it really, really goes to shit. Her and Stefan stand back to back, fighting the literal zombie horde. “Why the fuck are we fighting zombies?” she snarls, decapitating one with a brilliant round-house kick.

“Because the universe laughs,” Stefan says darkly.

“I swear on all that is holy, if I find out that Adam has been allowing voodoo in a hundred mile radius, I will beat his furry butt black and blue.”

“I think-” Stefan stops because he has to concentrate on the zombie that is gnawing at his throat- “that Mercy has prior claim to that.”

“You would think that, huh?” She growls and kills another zombie. “You call for backup yet?” Ash sinks to her knees, and throws an arm up. “Hold still,” she barks at the vampire. She pulls energy from the ground and lets lose a word of Power. Everything, apart from her and Stefan catches on fire. Ash sways, but forces herself to her feet. She is the Marrok’s mate, and she will not fall. Stefan blinks at her, shocked. “Like I said, you call for backup yet?”

“Soon, as we walked into a murder army.”

“Brilliant.” She looks at his face. “What? Do I have zombie blood or something?” They are covered in the stuff, and stinking to high heaven. _Fuck this,_ she thinks, _this certainly will help Bran’s case that I can’t leave well enough alone. What does he know?_ Ash wipes some of the blood off on her jeans and blinks up at the headlights that come toward them. “Hauptman?” she asks.

The man in question gets out of the truck. He has an ax laying neatly in his arms. Daryl, his second, gets out from the other side. Between the two, Ash thinks they have it covered enough to stop worrying about the third wave. Adam whistles at the field of blood and gore. “You find that bus?” he asks.

Ash points to a barn. “It’s in there. _We_ were in there, being all snug as bugs in a rug, when zombies attacked us.” She sighs. “The damn thing wouldn’t start. They probably hexed it something fierce. You mind giving us a ride back to my motel? I don’t have enough to undo whatever the heck they did.”

“You do all this?” Adam asks, gesturing at the field.

“Hmm.”

“Forget detective, you should become a battering ram,” Daryl mutters, kicking the limb of a nearby zombie.

“Please,” Ash says. “It isn’t smart to stay here.”

“Will they come back to life?” Adam asks, tensing around the ax.

“Nope. But their spirits are restless, and I’d rather leave here ASAP. Can you-” She coughs, hacking up some blood. “It’s fine. Can you all stand in the truck?” Adam tenses more, but does as asked, because it was asked. “Great. Um. Alpha, mind giving me some strength? I don’t-” He reaches his hand down and claps it on the woman’s shoulder. “Thanks.” She places one hand on the truck, kicks off her boots and plants both feet in the mud and blood. “From the earth you were risen. You will return there, and stay forever more. Peace be upon you,” she chants. She repeats it three more times. “So mote it be!” she snaps out. The men repeat it. The bodies, all the blood, slowly sink into the earth. Adam sways and Ash passes out entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me*casually eyeing Patty*: See what you did?  
> Patty: gesturing at Bran: I did what the plot called for.  
> Me: You fucked up a perfectly good werewolf is what you did. Now he’s got anxiety.  
> Bran: I’m fine.  
> Me: She literally said that you realized that you could mate Mercy, and that was a possibility.  
> Bran: So maybe I got some anxiety.
> 
> This whole thing is a rework of something I did when I was a lot more terrible at writing. Hopefully this is better. I apologize for the weird present verb tense, but it made sense when I started. Let me know what you think! Or if there's a better way to summarize this.


	2. If I could not see you for seven years or more

(Ash’s POV)

I come to in the basement of Hauptman’s house. It is his house, with his scent so entrenched in the walls. It is in the basement judging from the staleness of the air. I spin off the table, catching a doctor off guard. “No touch,” I tell him, jerking my torn sweater back into place. I wince at the pain. I don’t like doctors, at all.

He nods. “One tore through your shoulder. I was just-”

“Don’t care,” I tell him frankly. I straighten myself up, holding my wounded arm. It hurts. I can hear Bran snarling away in Aspen. He’d be on a flight here, but we’d (I’d pushed and he’d accepted) that the less times we saw each other, the better. Well, accepted might be an exaggeration. The doc took another step toward me, and I pulled a knife from my ankle strap. “Absolutely not, buddy.”

“I just want to make sure you’re-”

“Don’t care.” I let the wall take my weight for a moment before righting myself. “Where’s Hauptman?”

“Upstairs, but you should really-”

“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks for asking.” I walk myself up the steps and into the kitchen. My head aches something fierce, but all in all, not bad for such a rough case. Hauptman’s making breakfast: eggs, bacon, grits. I sit down across from him at the breakfast bar. “Stefan get his bus back?”

“Yeah. He left before dawn could hit.” Adam flips some eggs onto my plate. He looks at me. “You’re less nervous now.”

“Hm.” He’s right. I’m getting the impression that these guys don’t speak unless they’re certain they’re right. I shrug at him. “It’s not like you’re going to challenge me after I took out a zombie horde. Where’s your mate?”

“At work. She went to get an early start.” That has a hint of a lie. He blinks at me.

I grimace, showing my teeth. “I am not a threat to your mate.” He doesn’t buy it. I sigh. “So mistrusting. Seriously, I wouldn’t even be here except for Stefan’s case.”

“Surely, there are cases in England.” His voice was dryer than sand.

I picked my way around the bacon and got into the grits and eggs. I shrugged at him. “I’m broke and tickets are expensive.” Both things are truth, but I could’ve afforded a 500 dollar ticket to London from Seattle. Heck, that’s definitely what I should have done. I keep my bowl tilted toward me. Adam keeps the bar between us. He’s also not looking at me directly, and it’s starting to piss me off. “ ‘Sides, my PTSD does better when people aren’t pussy-footing around,” I tell him. He grins a bit at that.

“That so?”

“Hmm. Thanks for breakfast, but I should really go and catch a flight back home.”

Adam does meet my eyes at that. “I think you’d be good for him.” I nearly laugh at that. Bran is doing his best to not manipulate me, and I thank him for that. I don’t need him though, and he doesn’t need me. His wolf requires me, because Bran is an utter mess of a person.

I shake my head. “It’s necessary. That’s all.”

“Your bite won’t get infected?” he asks.

“Nope.”

Adam hesitates. “I would feel better if I knew you weren’t going to die.” He doesn’t say ‘please.’ Adam’s careful to not push at me, not pulling on his dominance-not that it would work on me.

I start to reject him again, but I think about it for a second. Hauptman’s between a rock and a hard place. Dominant wolves are supposed to protect people, keep people safe. Being what I am, Adam’s driven to protect me more than he wants to. His instincts says I’m dangerous and his wolf wants to pile blankets on me, and kill whatever’s clearly terrifying me.

“Fine.” I give in. “But I’m not going into the basement again.” I meet his eyes without flinching. “PTSD and all, being what it is.” Samuel, clearly listening to our conversation, comes up with a med kit. I twiddle my fingers, and don’t look up at him. I lock my good leg around the stool so I won’t immediately kill the poor bastard.

“I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself before,” he says. He unpacks some gauze, pads, and rubbing alcohol. “I’m Samuel Cornick.”

I nod. “I know. Your da told me.” It’s the only thing keeping me from being a state away. “I’m probably too weak to hurt you-just warn me.”

“Okay.” Samuel starts by helping me get my shirt off. It hurts. Adam leaves quickly after that, probably to keep me calmer. It doesn’t help all that much. Samuel keeps one hand on my shoulder to brace me and him. He also keeps the edge of the table between us. “All right. It doesn’t look too bad,” he says, once he’s scrubbed the muck out. “I’d like to put some stitches in just in case, but you’ll be fine with out.”

“Go ahead.” Luckily, most of my attention is centered on Bran’s wolf. The Beast-and really Bran should pick a better name because that has all sorts of issues attached to it- is growling and wants to ripe Samuel’s throat out.  _ He’s fine, _ I tell them both.  _ Just got a little banged up _ . I can’t help the whine that comes out of me when Samuel tugs skin back up over the bone. Bran pushes a feeling of home, of safety at me, and I nearly snap at poor Samuel’s throat in response. Bran stops at once. I’d stopped bleeding hours ago, but the skin hadn’t healed enough to stop showing off my collar bone.

“Easy,” Samuel soothes, moving back a bit. He stops suddenly. “Fine,” he mutters to himself. He pulls out his phone and hits the 3 on the speeddial.

Bran picks up from the other end. “What happened?” he growls at me. I bite my tongue. “Ash-”

“I routed out some zombies for Hauptman. He got all upset that one bit me-not a big deal- and your son was just patching me up. Calm down, hold man,” I tell him, not amused that Samuel was ordered to call him, or that Bran was taking his frustration out on me.

“You’re okay.” He’s meek. I can feel his anger at the back of my neck like he’s in the room.

“Right. So where’s my money?” I ask Samuel, deciding to ignore my mate.

“Stefan left a check on the fridge for you.” I get off the stood and slide the check from underneath a pirate magnete. 

“Thanks, Samuel.” I hesitate for a minute. Technically, technically under wolf law, he’s my stepson, which is so wrong. I don’t have anything to say though. I want to. I should have-if I was a better person, maybe I’d know what to say to a thousand year old werewolf, who’s da mated a woman who finally made it through her first century. “I’ll be on my way, then,” I tell them both.

“Ash,” Bran says. I can feel that he wants to be  _ here _ , to convince me not to leave, to stay in the States where it is safe. But it’s not safe, not for me, and certainly not for him. So, I leave, taking the money and getting out of the kitchen. I say a cursory goodbye to Adam, and keep from meeting anybody else. I make it back to the motel to count the money, and to consider that the experience wasn’t the worst it could have been. It was still pretty bad.

I take a flight back to London that night, from Seattle. I hate flying. That’s not quite it. I hate flying with humans, in large crowds of people. I go though. I listen to a kid screaming for thirty minutes, before asking the woman if I can help. The exhausted mother hands her kid over, trusting that I wasn’t going to eat it or something. I jiggle the kid gently, and get it chuckling before long. I hold the baby for the whole flight, not sleeping myself.

I get lost in London, which is what first drew me to the city. You are constantly surrounded by thousands of people, and it can still marvously lonely. I wander around, hitting up Skoob Books. I spend some time wandering around Leadenhall Market. I’ve been reading through  _ The Martian  _ and  _ Hitchhiker’s.  _ They’re the best comfort reading I have. I start looking for a case after another day or two. As if to conjure the thought, Samuel shows up in London. He’d tracked me to Libreria, another bookstore.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper-shouted at him. I put my book down. It’s some trash called  _ An Absolutely Remarkable Thing _ by Hank Green. Some people might like to read about selfish and terrible people, but I don’t.

“Da’s in a bad way,” he tries, sitting down next to me on the floor.

I shrug at him. “Not my problem.”

“You-” he hisses, and quiets his tone when a librarian gives him a Look. “You,” he continues, “are his mate.”

“Look, there’s a noisy pub next street over. Let’s go there so we’re not having this discussion in a quiet bookstore, ya?” I get up, tugging him up after me. He scares me less now, after I’ve had time to build up my magic again. He follows along to the pub. I order some tea. Thank god for England. It has actual tea, and not that shite they serve in the States, not that I’m particularly English. We sit down, and I continue where we left off.

“Like I said, not my problem.” I glare at him. “Bran’s fine. Oliver give you permission to be here?” I ask, surprised that the London alpha would be okay with having such a dominant male in his territory.

“Yeah. We go way back.” There’s definitely a story there. So, I ask him about it. “Oh, I knew him when he was changed, about-what? A hundred and fifty years ago, or so. Good man.”

“Right. Just so we’re clear, he’s older than me,” I tell him. “And you’re willing for me to go have sex with your father.” He choked at that on his beer. “Yeah. That’s how I feel about it.”

“But you must’ve-” I don’t think he’s the blushing sort, but he would’ve then if he was. “You must’ve had sex with him,” he finishes, not trying to think about it too much.

I roll my eyes at him. “Sex,” I say tartly, “is not necessary for mating.”

“Right. But you had’ta have, right?” He’s getting over the shock of his da having sex. Later, I’d learn that most of that was faked for my amusement. He gets a wicked look in his eye, “I’ve heard he’s good at-”

“Thank you, but no,” I say firm. “I am not discussing your father’s bedroom habits. It’s just not happening.” I sigh at him. “Regardless, your father agreed to this. Gods willing, he finds a better mate.”

Samuel’s face flexes a little. “You think he’d end your mating.” His tone is very disbelieving.

I shrug. “It’s the logical choice. I’ve got no head for politicking or dealing with werewolves in general. I’m a child in comparison to you or him. Hell, Samuel, do you really want me to be your mom? You got that many issues that you have an oedipus complex going on too?”

“That’s not-” he groans- “I think that you would be good for him,” he says woodenly. “He needs somebody who won’t give in.”

“Hmm. So I’m a fucking argument partner is that it?” I ask him.

_ Can you tell him to call me?  _ Bran asks. His voice is very polite. I tell him to can it and use a cellphone.  _ I would but you were in a place that bans cellphones and neither of you are picking up _ . He sounds unhappy about it. I make a mental note to go to the most Instagram worthy spot I can find in London, and call him on speaker. Maybe hit up some techno clubs. I do not reply Bran’s message. If Samuel’s fucking this up, maybe they’ll both realize it’s a lost cause.

“He’s too used to getting his way,” Samuel says slowly, trying to get his point into my thick skull. “Everybody rolls over for him, except Anna and Mercy.”

“Yeah, I heard about that,” I tell him. There’s enough meaning in my voice that he blinks. “I heard about your wanting to make a child into your mate, and how your father was fixing to do the same, enough that he sent her away.”

“You’ve been speaking to Anna,” he says.

I shrug at him. “I like Charles.” Charles is what I could’ve become, if somebody had given two shits about my mental health.

“You like Charles.” Samuel huffs at me. “And you wonder why I think you’d be good for Da.”

“Yeah, well, just ‘cause I get along with Charles, doesn’t mean I want to be the Marrok’s mate.”

“So why’d you do it?” he asks me. I bite my tongue, drawing blood. He leans closer. “Why’d you do it?”

“Because I like being an idiot,” I tell him. It’s the truth, but all of it. “And I like being an alive idiot more than I like being a dead one.” I’ve seen monsters. I was brought up as one, and by one. I know evil, what it looks like, and how to kill it. Bran isn’t evil. I don’t like him, but he isn’t evil. You don’t have to like somebody to keep them from killing folk though. “Where’s your mate at?” I ask him.

“Shopping. She thought that you, me, and her would create a negative feedback loop.”

“Good to know you’re not a complete moron,” I allow. “I met her once, your mate. I’m glad that she’s found you.” I shook my head at him, knowing what his next question would be. “We didn’t exchange words. I ran across her years ago, and I kept running.”

“You? You ran away?”

“Live to fight another day. I know when I’m outclassed. I doubt she even remembers it.”

“I do,” Ariana says, startling Samuel. I’d watched her approach, keeping my eyes down. She was nervous, but not horribly so. Samuel, being a gentleman, had given me the seat with the best vantage point. It hadn’t made him happy, but it had made me like him a little more. “You convince her that Bran is a loveable puppy yet?” She had issues with her mate’s plan.

“Not really,” I say lightly. I drink some tea as she sits down. “Ash Cassidy. I don’t think we met.” I keep my eyes on Samuel, not looking in her direction. The scent of her fear is small, but still there. I scooch a little further away from her and toward Samuel instead. I keep my hands on my mug, and pull it toward me. She grins a little at me and gives a nod of thanks.

“Ariana Brewster,” she tells me. I nod. I meet her eyes for a second before dropping my gaze, telling her that here she is dominant to me. It’s not something I’d do to Samuel, and while she scared me years ago, I ran because I knew I’d frighten her more. She doesn’t scare me now. “I’m not-I do remember you from that time,” she says. “Thank you for leaving.”

“No problem.”

“I came once I realized who you are.” She gazes at me without looking away. I keep mine down. Samuel may be old, much older than me, but she is something else entirely, and could easily bring this whole place down. “I did not have the confidence to approach you then, and I wish I had.”

Startled, I look up at her. “That’s not-” my voice gets rough- “it was a very quiet place, that wood. I am happy that it brought you peace. I was glad to leave you to it.” I shake my head at her. “What was done to me was not your fault, and I wouldn’t have accepted your help then. I might’ve-” I swallow and because I try to be honest say- “I could have harmed you.”

Ariana leans forward. “Would you?” she asks curiously, and then dismisses me. “I doubt it. You were-” she hesitates, searching for a good word.

“Broken,” I offer. “I was broken then.” I grin a little. “Probably couldn't sit here with you then, and your charming mate.” We smile a bit at each other.

“You think I’m charming?” Samuel asks, knowing that I wanted a subject change. And because, like me, Samuel likes to poke at things, he says “how long ago was this?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly.

Ariana shrugs. “1890s?” she asks me. I shrug back.

Samuel startles, leaning forward. “You’re over two hundred?”

I shake my head at him. “I don’t know, but I’ve been  _ alive _ for a hundred years I think. I . . . it took me a while to come back. I think the first time I looked at a paper was around WWII.” I smile without humor. “It damn near drove me back into the wood. Enough about me. How’s Europe been so far?”

I knew from Bran that they had been traveling around a fair bit. I can feel him still at the back of my head, listening in. I should block him out. I really should, but I can’t bring myself to do it. My wolf doesn’t want me too, and she’s done enough that I can give her this.

“It’s been quiet,” Samuel laughs.

“Hmm. I liked Africa better,” Ariana says. “There was more to do, more to help with.”

“Hati was good,” Samuel disagrees. “We met Paul Farmer.”

“Ah, yes. Your man crush,” she teases. Samuel does blush at that.

“Oh?” I ask.

“He does good work,” Samuel mutters into his beer.

“I know,” Ariana says with an air of having heard this lecture before. She takes on a gruff tone. “He helps people, Ari, truly helps them, not with lectures about their living, but by working with them to improve their communities, and advocating, and doing it all by flying back and forth from Harvard to Hati and-”

“Yes, yes, thanks, dear.” Samuel slips his hand into hers.

“You guys are sweet,” I tell them.

“Sweet enough that you’ll talk to Bran?” Samuel asks, hopeful.

“Can’t,” I tell him. “And I’m not discussing my issues-Gods when did we become a reality TV show- with your father with his son.”

“Who better to advise you?” he asks, voice like silk.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Nope. Now, have you been to the museums yet?” 

They shake their head. I pay for Samuel and I’s drinks and take them on a tour of London as I know it. It takes the better part of the afternoon. I cook them both dinner at my flat. I do invite them to stay on the fold-out couch, but they decide to go back to their hotel. It is a hotel, Samuel assures me, and a good one at that. I’m not surprised, and they do promise to get breakfast with me in the morning.

Bran waits a full two hours after they leave to call me. It’s about ten by then, and that means it’s 5pm in Montana. I sigh, but I do him the service of answering the phone. He’s ready for a fight. We’d talked a few times by now.

“I didn’t tell him to see you,” he says, without bothering to exchange greetings.

“I know,” I tell him.

“I didn’t even hint to him that he should go and see you,” he continues, like I’m itching to shoot him for his son being nosey.

“I know,” I repeat.

“I didn’t even tell anybody about the bond,” he continues, talking over me in his not anxiety really, but something- a drive to assure me that he hadn’t meant to hurt me again. Not that he has.

“Bran, I  _ know _ . Charles figured it out, and so did Adam. Samuel probably did as well. I know you didn’t ask Sam to come to London and convince me to go back to Montana, all right?” I sigh into the phone. “I’m telling you it’s all right.”

“Oh, good.” He’s still tense. I want to know what Leah did to him. I’m sure he was dominant in that relationship, at least on the outside, but I’ve seen enough unhealthy relationships to know something happened to make him this way. Not that she didn’t have her reasons for being a bitch. Anna called me regularly to talk about Omega things, though I wasn’t much help to her, so we turned to gossip some. Looking back, she was probably getting information for Samuel.

“How’ve you been?” I ask, searching for conversation.

“I’ve been good. You?”

“Good.” And we sound like two people who don’t really want to each other. “I started reading  _ Call of the Wild _ today,” I tell him. “Kinda hate it to be honest.”

“Adam recommend it?” he asks.

“Recommend Jack London at least,” I say. I start cleaning things up, needing to do something with my hands. He doesn’t terrify me as much as he should, not when there’s miles and miles between us. It makes me more self-conscious and unsure. I don’t like it.

The problem isn’t that Bran is scary. That’s never been my trigger. I can face zombie hordes, vampires, witches, and all manner of things without breaking a sweat. Put me in a room with a white man, aged twenty-sixty, and I lose it. It doesn’t help that Bran can suppress everything that makes him dominant, so he looks so harmless. It makes me want to snap at him until something bad happens. At least, unlike the entire population of Planet Earth, I’m not scared of his wolf. The creature is cunning and terrible, but he’s not going to gas light me or torture me. Wolves, sane wolves-and the Beast is too pragmatic to be anything else, don’t play with their food.

“I like  _ White Fang _ ,” he tells me. “I assign it to wolves that have been in the cold for too long.” He takes a deep breath. “You know,” he says carefully, “that I would never force you here.” It’s not a question. Bran is a patient hunter, and an effective one at that.

I pace for a minute. He lets me think it over. “I’m not going to the States any time soon,” I tell him. “And you’re not invited to London.” I pace some more. “You ever do Skype?” I ask him, wanting to get a better read on him. I liked the 21st Century well enough. No polio. Women can vote. America went to the Moon. People can still be terrible, but at least we got Paul Farmer.

“Yeah. What’s your username?”

“AshCassidy,” I tell him. “Proper capitalization, no spaces.” I listen to him rummage around while I fire up my laptop. Six months ago, I would’ve shot myself for losing my mind. I wait patiently for him to video call me. It goes through.

He’s sitting at a desk in a study. There’s a wall of books behind him. He has good lighting from a fire and a desk lamp. Bran looks tired still. It’s November by now, and I can see snow out of the window. I remember my appearance: braless, wearing a thin sweater and wince.

“You want to ask me something,” he informs.

“I’m starting to understand why everybody’s scared of you. They think it’s magic just ‘cause you got a thousand years of experience. Fine,” I admit. “Mercy.”

“It’s a long story,” he starts. I raise an eyebrow at him. We are long-lived creatures, and we had time. “Fair enough. She was brought to me as a baby. I knew my mate wouldn’t tolerate her.”

“That’s a red flag,” I tell him.

Bran nods. “Yeah. I love Leah. She is what I need in a mate, because I couldn't fall in love with her. She could be viscous if she wanted. Mercy was-is fragile, too human to be in my home.” There’s regret in his voice. Dominant wolves are control freaks and love to have people to love and protect. I couldn't see that going well with Mercy. I, along with everybody in the supernatural world, had heard of the Peanut Butter incident. “I gave her to Bryan and his mate. They were good people, and they longed for a child. I loved her as a daughter, but if I wanted her safe from the pack, she couldn't know. I found out recently that she thought I only tolerated her.” He laughs. It’s a sorrowful sound. “I guess I did my work too well. Samuel was broken then, desperate to have children. He saw an opportunity in Mercy, one I never considered. Samuel made her fall in love with him.” His eyes are steady on me, waiting my judgement of him. “I knew it was inappropriate, and that it would break the two of them. But it was the best action I could do. I drove Mercy out, forcing her to go to her mother’s.” He shuffled a bit, considering his next words carefully. “I love Mercy as a daughter and nothing more, but she tried me. She’s one of the few who challenges me.” He loves that, I can tell. “I would be stupid to not aknowledge that she would have been a good mate for me, but she is my daughter, and that would be disgusting. More than that, she is under my protection and I love her as a daughter.” His speech putters out.

“I’m not one for playing the jealous woman,” I say, mulling over his speech. “But you swear you never thought of it?”

“Not once. Anna thinks differently. She believes that I would have moved on her, and that’s why I drove her away.” He shakes his head. “I drove her away because she needed to stand on her own two feet. It was still a bad choice. It broke Samuel further. It was cruel, what I did to the two of them. I thought she knew me better than to think I merely tolerated her. I got too used to Samuel and Charles, who know me better than I know myself at times.”

“Hence their interference,” I murmur. “And me?” I ask him. “I know it was desperation, but I am a twelve of your age, if that.”

“I do not have fatherly feelings toward you,” he admits. We breath through my panic of that statement. Bran had vowed to be honest with me. He told me once, ‘hard truths can be dealt with, triumphed over, but lies will destroy your soul.’ “I think,” he continues, “that we would be good for each other, but I will accept your rejection when I can.”

“I am happy to stand between you killing everybody. It’s not-I know we didn’t have a choice.” The witches had forced the bond, using blood magic. “But it’s not a burden to share your mind.”

Bran blinks. “I make you nervous.” It’s a polite word for mind-numbing panic, but sure, Bran. You make me nervous.

“Yeah, but that’s not really your fault. It does put a whole new spin on ‘know thy enemy.’” I rub at my face, tired. “What is, is,” I say simply. “I just didn’t want to have to kill you for being a pedophile.”

“Anna would’ve taken care of it,” he reassures me. “Or Adam. Or Mercy.”

“Good to know. I’m sorry that you’re in this situation of using this as a way for control.”

“You think that the Beast won’t kill everybody.”

“Oh no, I think it would very much.” He can hear the but coming. “Because you think it would.”

“It has before,” he argues. It’s an oldie and a goodie.

“Sure, sure, because it killed everybody once.”

“Ask Anna about the time that-”

“I know about that time. Charles insisted on telling me, because he thinks I’m not properly respectful of that time that you nearly killed him after being triggered.”

“Triggered,” he mocks, letting me know he’s up to date on Facebook culture. “I nearly murdered my own son because somebody-”

“-a witch-” I correct.

“-got the best of me,” he finishes.

“I nearly killed Samuel,” I tell him. I let him hear the guilt in my voice that I hadn’t allowed Samuel or Adam. I would have regret that death. I’m happy it didn’t happen. “When I woke up at Hauptman’s. Ariana nearly killed me today. ‘Course, she didn’t come very close to it, but she has before. You have PTSD and severe issues with your wolf,” I inform him, tired of pussy-footing around it. He glares at me. “Quite frankly, I’ll be glad to turn your ass over to somebody else.”

Because he doesn’t want to argue with me right now, he changes the subject. “You catch any good cases?” he asks.

“Nope. Bunch of cheaters.”

We both still have questions for each other, but it’s late and the conversation devolves into a fest of what’s the weirdest thing we’ve come across in the human world. By midnight, I’m worn out and plead tiredness. I go to sleep, working to convince myself that I will sleep and that the nightmares will leave me alone. It doesn’t work and I fall into an uneasy sleep.

I wake around 5am, and work out. I run through London, keeping my pace to just shy of supernatural. My wolf calms and steadies from the hour long run. It’s enough to keep her satisfied that we can move and fight if we have to. The dreams hadn’t been the worst they’ve been. I can feel Bran asleep. At least he hadn’t woken up and called in a panic. It happened once- saying it hadn’t helped is an understatement.

By 9am, I’m showered and done enough work to feel good. I meet Ariana and Samuel at the breakfast palace across the street. Samuel is cheerful, which makes me wary. “You talked to Da last night.” Ariana puts a hand on his arm, to try to bring down his happiness.

“Hmm. I discussed a case with him.” Truth. I was getting good at this stuff with the lying. I prefer to be blunt.

“And other things huh?” he asks. I’m tempted to hit him.

“Doesn’t change anything.” I order some tea and toast. His sharp eyes notice. I flick my eyes up at his, a challenge. He keeps his mouth shut. “Where are you guys going after London?”

“France,” Ariana tells me. She uses more tact than her mate. Although, I expect Samuel could catch flies with vinegar if he wanted. “I’ve never been.” I raise my eyebrows at that. “Well, I’ve never been to any of the cities. I’m trying to convince him to do the touristy thing of the Eiffel Tower.”

“Good luck with that,” I tell her. Werewolves don’t do good with crowds.

“Okay, but if we went really, really early,” she wheedles her mate. He smiles at her, and I know she could get him to do damn near about anything. I’ve heard stories about Samuel Cornick, and it’s good to see that he’s wrapped up around somebody damn near indestructible.

I start tossing out ideas that would drive any wolf insane: Mall of America, concerts, subways, roller coasters, cruises. Ariana happily gets into it for a while, and Samuel just laughs. “Excuse me,” Ariana says after a moment. “I want to wash up before the food comes.” Samuel watches her goes. It’s like he couldn't take his eyes off her if he tried.

“So?” I ask him. He looks at me. “She wanted to let you ask me something in private.”

“You don’t eat meat.” It’s not a question.

“I haven’t eaten meat that you’ve seen,” I correct. He makes a face at me. I sigh. “It’s not a big deal. Lots of people don’t eat meat.”

“You’re trying to be a vegetarian werewolf.”

“Save the bees,” I tell him. “It’s not a big deal, doc. I don’t like eating meat so I don’t eat it.”

“You don’t like eating meat,” he parrots back, working it over.

“Nope.” I twist my fingers together. “My wolf does and I humor her.”

“How often is that-”

“None of your business,” I inform him. “Not eating meat isn’t a crime.”

“It is for wolves.” Samuel’s worried, but I get the feeling that he likes being worried. Most dominants do. They get a kick out of poking their noses into other peoples’ business, and dictating the correct actions that should follow. All packs are dictatorships. Democracy hasn’t come to werewolves, and I don’t expect it to.

“Sam, I’m fine.” He has the itch that all doctors do, of wanting to pull their victim into an exam room. It’s not happening. Maybe he didn’t realize how close I am to killing him last time, but it’s not happening again. “I drink protein shakes like I’m Arnold Schwarzenger in the 1970s.” I understand his concern. Sick wolves won’t eat, and starve themselves away, and because we’re technically family now, it gives him the power to ask awkward questions like-

“Are you starving yourself?”

“I have bad reactions to eating meat,” I say, my voice soft and that makes me angry. “The people who brutalized me-” he stiffens and I growl at him- “who brutalized me,” I continue, “they used food. So, I have a bad reaction to eating meat.”

Maybe his common sense needs five minutes to kick in, but he doesn’t push more. “Okay,” he says. Ariana slips back to her seat. She had listened in. I breath out, long and slow.

The rest of breakfast paces peaceably. I see them off. I lock up my flat for the next month and go gallivanting around the globe. I end up in Mexico, along the US border. It’s not- the United States has gotten more anti-immigration in recent years, and I’m fluent in Spanish and kinda bullet-proof. It’s good I’m there because I run across a wolf guarding a child and others in a coyote tunnel. 


	3. I would think of you my darling

I sit my butt on the ground. The child can’t be older than a toddler, from the scent of diapers. If I was more confident about the wolf’s sanity, I’d roll on my back and yield fully. I’m omega, and it wouldn’t bother me overly. The wolf growls at me. He’s ready to defend his people from me. I can respect that.

I sit there for ten minutes, letting the wolf get some control back. Although, it seems to be doing just fine on its own. He, I note, and very dominant. He’s not scared of me, but confident that he will attack if I go near him.

“Hola. Soy Ash Cassidy. No quiero hacerte daño.”  _ I don’t mean you any harm _ . “Lo prometo.”  _ I promise _ . He growls at me again, telling me that he’s not buying what I’m selling. I nod a bit at that. I can smell other wolves behind him. They’re also readying themselves to attack me, if I prove to be a threat. That’s why I’m not too worried about them. I’m more worried about the humans and the child further back. They are scared, properly so. The tunnel wasn’t exactly safe to begin with, and it wasn’t intended to house this many people. “Todo está bien. No estoy con la policía.”  _ It’s all right. I’m not with the police. _ I get out my pack. There’s stale bread and water in it. I tear a bite off and eat it, and drink some water. I wrap the food back up and roll it, along with the water, to the wolf. He raises his lips at me, but his wariness is fading. He takes a bite of the bread, and waits a second to see if it’ll kill him. He passes the bread to some wolf behind him. The tunnel obscures my vision and I don’t get a clear scent over the fear and dirt in my nose. The alpha is catching my scent though and starting to think I’m not there to kill him or his. His second comes up behind him, nudging the alpha’s hip.

At that, the alpha changes back. I wait patiently. Another wolf nudges sweaters over. I let my eyes rest on the ground. There’s no need to startle them more. He dresses and stands hunched in the small tunnel. “Soy Ash Cassidy,” I repeat. “Estoy aqui para ayudar.”  _ I’m here to help _ .

“Soy Michael. Mike.” He’s small, but all of it is muscle. He has scars across his chest from another wolf, and has an air to him that’s he’s fought for a living. Mike looks as tough as old shoe leather. “¿Estás con el Marrok?”  _ Are you with the Marrok? _

I hesitate. I am, technically. “Si. Puedo llevarte al otro lado de la frontera y concertar una reunión con sus lobos.”  _ Yeah, I can get you across the border and arrange a meeting with his wolves. _ “Voy a llamarlo, ¿de acuerdo?”  _ I’m going to call him, all right? _ I wave my phone up for him to see.

“De acuerdo.”

I hit speed dial and get Bran on the line. “Hola,” I say when he answers. “estás en el altavoz.”  _ You’re on speaker _ . I make sure to speak Spanish. It’s a damn good thing that Bran has been around enough that I can just trust that he knows Spanish. Mike relaxes even more. I quickly explain that I’m helping a pack of wolves cross the border, in agreement of the treaty Charles hammered out a few years back. Any pack can cross into the United States. Bran tells me he expected them last night and had started to get concerned. ICE hadn’t let the Marrok wolves investigate the border last night. In quick succussion we work it all out. I talk him into letting me sneak them in, rather than have a group of nervous werewolves and their humans deal with ICE. I don’t like ICE. I’m not impressed with the United States’ ongoing genocide. If I wasn’t worried about consequences from on-high, I’d have started my own emancipation proclamation.

“Gracias,” Mike tells me and Bran.

“De nada,” he responds. “Hay una manada en San Antonio. Puede unirse a ellos o podemos resolver algo. Es lo más cercano a donde estás. Ash te llevará allí.”  _ There’s a pack in San Antonio. You can either join them or we can work something out. It’s the closest to where you’re at. Ash will get you there. _ “Charles, mi hijo, se encontrará con usted fuera de Laredo.”  _ Charles, my son, will meet you outside of Laredo _ . We had figured out where we all were, about ten miles from the border. Charles will have transportation at the border.

Charles is not an obvious choice, but he is a good one. He’s methodical and not white.

The pack begins to stir more, restless, and wanting to get out of this country. Many of the members shift back to human and get dressed. It’ll be a long walk, and they can carry their human members easier that way. Mexico was not overly dangerous, but the government had made its views on the supernatural very clear: they needed to leave. Most people were very, very religious, and considered werewolves to be the devil’s servants. Last I heard, Bran was in talks to extricate all wolves from Mexico by 2023. It seemed that they couldn't wait anymore.

Before long, we’re out, walking along. I warn Mike before I do it, but I cast a glamour over the pack, keeping our thirty some party hidden. We walk for four hours before taking a break. My pack has been significantly lightened by giving out my clothes, food, water, and what other supplies they needed. I roll my neck out, keeping an eye out for the humans. Most people, when given an opportunity to not be scared, are good people. Border patrol is not that. Dust is starting to clog my throat, but I do not complain. These folks have been running for days. I end up carrying one child on my shoulders. Her mom uses me as a crutch on the rough terrain. We finally make it by nightfall. It’d taken most of the time to skirt around the border town. I can keep people from looking closely at our group, but I can’t do a lot if they do start to look too closely.

Finally, finally, we meet Charles outside of a park. He’s brought a bus and enough food to feed everybody. Anna wanders around, talking gently to the folks, calming tempers down. I love that woman. I sit on the stoop of the bus, and let the masters take charge. They’re a good team. Charles is dominant, and not subtle with it. It tells Mike that anything scary is going to have to go through him first. Charles is confident in his ability to keep all these people safe, and it makes it stick more from his dominance and general Charles-ness. It calms Mike down a bit, and everybody eases up a bit. I heave a great sigh, and relax more on the stoop, happy to turn the job over.

“You okay?” Anna asks me. I don’t know how much help I’ve been to her on learning Omega powers, but we’d kept in contact. I nod. She hands me a ham sandwich. I shove down my fear, cutting the scent off before anybody else but her can catch it, and swallow the sandwich in two bites. It hits my empty stomach like a stone. I let my eyes rest on Mike. He’s standing and conversing with Charles in easy Spanish.

“Charles is going to drive us all to San Antonio tonight,” Anna explains. “He has documentation for Mike and his pack, enough that if ICE stops us, we’re good.”

“Blessed we are for your mate’s ability to get computers to sing,” I murmur. It would’ve taken five years to get proper ID, and Charles will probably do that as well. It is getting frightening how competent he is. I get up, using her shoulder to steady myself. It’s been a hard day. “You bring coffee?” I ask her. She hands me a thermos. I eye her. “If you ever want to leave Charles,” I say, making sure that my tone tells her I’m joking.

“I’ll bear that in mind.” Her tone is dry. I burn my tongue on the coffee, and that wakes me up more than the drink. It is solid coffee: dark and bitter enough to melt cement. I clap my hand on her shoulder in thanks, and go help carrol people onto the bus. They’re less scared now, more exhausted than anything else.

I sit in the back, next to the kids, talking softly to them and their parents, making sure that they got to relax a little bit. It was only about a three hour drive to get them all to the alpha’s house. I made the executive decision to wait in the van with the pack, while Mike, Anna, and Charles went in. I fell asleep just as the last person left the bus. 

I wake up at the hotel that Charles had driven to. It’s got to be three am or something. I want to cry for how tired I am. I give considerable thought to killing whoever woke me. I blink my eyes blearily up at Charles. He’s stooped down next to me. “Tell me you were about to say that meme, the ‘hey you’ one.”

“What?” he asks.

I get up, stretching and popping my neck. Anna snorts. She gets it. I grin at her. “What time you heading back to Montana?” I ask.

Charles doesn’t shrug precisely. “How long you going to play good samaritan?” Charles has a way of mincing words.

“Little bit longer. I should help since I can. Why?”

He hesitates and then says, “this conversation should wait.” Curious and now much more awake, I follow them into the hotel, and keep my trap shut while Charles checks us in.

I eye him. “Can it wait until I shower?” He nods.

I do hear his and Anna’s hushed conversation. “I shouldn’t meddle,” Charles says.

“If you don’t, I will,” he gets told. Charles is scary, but I bet that Anna wears the pants in their relationship-so to speak. They stop talking and I finish cleaning up. I dress in some spare clothes that Charles leaves. They’d brought supplies aplenty for the immigrants. I dress quickly, and remain grateful that I cut all my hair off.

“What?” I ask Charles.

I really do like the man. He’s sturdy. One day, when we’re both a little calmer, I’d like to see if I could throw him. Anna huffs at him.

Finally he says, “I’m not trying to manipulate you. What Samuel did was stupid.” Startled, I blink at him. “It was. Da’s a wily old bastard.” In him, I read his respect for his alpha and father. “But the year’s been hard on him, and it will get harder still.” I can also read what he wants from me, and I don’t like it.

“He’ll be fine. You will make sure he’ll be fine.” It was almost an order. I grimace at myself.

I can feel my wolf wanting to go to the Marrok, wanting to step into the trapping of politics and men who won’t let me fight, won’t let me break bones and bring forth blood and magic. Bran would wrap me up in wool and cotton, and I’d have to be a proper mate. I couldn't do it, not for a man that I only respected.

Charles looks at me, the way one an especially slow student. “You think he’d let me take care of him.”

“Charles, I like you. I really, really do. Of my technical step-sons, you’re the better one.” He blinks at that. “But I’m not truly marrying somebody that I don’t love.” I can feel Bran’s hurt thrum through me. I grit my teeth. “Your Da is broke, broke in a way that I can’t help. And I’m broke too. Shoving broken pieces together is a way to get hurt.”

“Anna and I were hurt before we found each other,” Charles tries.

I shake my head. “You do not- hang on.” I text Bran, telling him that I’m going to tell Charles uncomfortable truths. “Okay. Forewarning for him. You do not hate your other half. You do not consider yourself evil and you are not suicidal.”

He’s shook at that. Silence falls for a beat. Then Anna chimes in. “Bran’s suicidal?” Worry colors her voice, and it rankles my wolf.

“Yeah. Has been for some time.” I get up and pace around for a minute, jolted at my worry for the bastard. Charles sits on the ground. “Not-he won’t kill himself anytime soon. But he’s tired of living and fighting the monster.” I laugh. It’s painful. “So, even if I healed enough, unbroke myself enough to be able to have a relationship, he won’t help himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wolves are not inherently evil,” I tell Charles. I keep pacing. Charles gives me the room, stretching out his legs. “They’re not. You can’t hate something so instinctual. His mother, may she die a thousand deaths, twisted that all up until he can’t think straight. It’s never been his wolf that’s the problem. If you convince somebody that they’re a monster, they’re defeated before the battle’s begun.” I keep pacing. “And I’ve hated myself enough. I don’t need to watch somebody else do it to know it’s a bad idea.”

“And you’re broke,” Anna adds, giving it a sarcastic edge.

“And that,” I agree, serious. “Anything else?” I ask Charles.

“Who did the breaking?”

My jaw flexes and if I wasn’t a werewolf, I’d need a good dentist. “Doesn’t matter really. They’re dead.”

“They are?” His voice is silky smooth and a threat.

“They are,” I say firmly.

“It seems,” Anna says, getting the conversation back on track, “that you would be good for Bran.”

“Moot point.” I flop onto my back on one of the beds. “I’m gonna get some sleep. I’ll be out of your hair in the morning.” I don’t sleep. Charles and Anna don’t ask me about it. I guess they figured they’d pushed me enough. I wake up again at 5am. I can feel Bran itching at the back of my head, wanting to convince me to go with Anna and Charles back to Montana. I get up, write a quick notes, and go for a walk around the city.

I call Bran, because despite what I might imply to Charles, Anna, and Samuel, I am a decent person. He answers immediately. I am, however, not a morning person. “You could’ve let it ring a few times, let me know that you’re not actually psychic,” I tell him, a little grumpy at 5am.

“I didn’t ask him to interfere,” he tells me. His tone is angrier than the last time one of his sons interfered in his-our-bond-uhg-the thing. The thing.

“Bran, I’m not a moron.” I sigh at him. “And I think Anna was the one to interfere.” I tap my feet on the sidewalk. “I’m sorry it was me in that cell. You know a lot of women would’ve lined up for this opportunity.”

“Oh yes, all of them would have been willing to get tortured.” I grin. “Nobody else could have survived that,” he tells me truthfully.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t do too bad yourself.”

“Apart from nearly killing you.” There’s a apology somewhere there, I’d expect.

“What is, is.” I don’t like dwelling on the past. I find it unproductive. “Seriously, you’re fine though? Charles is worried over nothing?”

“I’m healing.” He sighs. I can see him pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to find the words to not worry me. Too late, asshole. “It was a lot. Leah’s death. The new bond. Torture.”

“Sorry.”

He makes a noise of disagreement. “You’re right. We’re a bad match. I’m trying-I’ll keep it together until I find somebody else.”

“Good.” I swallow down my roughness. I hate that dealing with Charles, with those wolves, has me understanding this man better. I can respect needing to do everything I can to protect people. I can get behind that. “How’s Asil?” I ask him. “You said you were worried about him the other night.”

He hesitates. “I’m worried that I’ll have to kill him this year. He was better before Sage.”

“Sage?”

“She betrayed the pack.” My eyebrows shoot up. “She strung Asil along. He’s the one who tracked her down and killed her.” He huffs again. “He hasn’t been the same since. I think she was the first person he really felt something for since his mate.”

“He had a mate?”

“Yeah, an omega. Sarai. I wasn’t around then. Kara, a teen-”

“You told me about her. She’s the one Mercy brought, right?”

“Yup. She’s been helping with him, but I think it’s a patch job at best.” I hear him shrug. “I hope not. He hasn’t gone truly mad yet, but he gave his wolf too much control with that hunt.”

Everything we do is a balancing act. I must keep control so I don’t burn a city down or let my wolf kill something. Even omegas are predators, and very territorial at that. Bran must keep control or he’d risk driving most of American werewolves to ruin with his need to hunt. He could bring them all with him, and unleash an army of wolves on the world. He also had to protect everyone in Aspen, and sometimes that meant killing a friend.

I don’t say,  _ let me know what I can do to help _ , because we both know he would want me to come help. And I can’t do it, for damn good reasons. And he knows all that.

So instead I say, “sorry I can’t be there.”

“It’s all right.” I hear him pace around a bit. I’m giving him my fucked up sleep cycle with all of this. “You know, I thought Leah was the traitor.”

I very much do not imply that he’s insane. “Really?” I ask, keeping my voice level.

“I-I tried to go all the way to Africa, so I wouldn’t-” and because he tries to be honest with me- “because I sent Charles to investigate the traitor. And I would have to kill him if he killed her. I wouldn’t have a choice.” He laughs at himself. “I made it all the way to Spokane before I couldn't go any further.”

“Just to be clear, you sent your  _ son _ to kill your  _ mate _ .” I pace some, tapping my feet even more against the curb, trying to work off my anger. “You sent a good man to deliver his own death sentence. You sent your  _ son _ to  _ die _ .” There’s a growl in my voice. Furious and angry.

“He forgave me,” he says it like the miracle it is.

“That’s because Charles is damn better person than I’ve ever been.” I snarl at the phone. “Bran-”

“What should I have done?” he asks, but its angry and defensive, prideful even. “I thought Leah had betrayed me, had betrayed  _ pack _ .” He’s more upset by the second, and he really needs a good therapist. “I couldn't kill her. I couldn't do it. She knew, that I thought her to be the traitor after it was over, and Charles hunted out Sage.”

Leah must’ve been a damn saint.

“To be clear,” I say, very, very softly. I bet Bran is happy to be a million miles away because I would have been screaming had we been near each other. I don’t like fighting people I care about. I’d rather be fighting the problem with them. But this. Jesus take the wheel. “You,” I continue, “told your  _ mate _ , somebody who loved you so much that she died for you, that you didn’t trust her to put the pack first, to have your back. You didn’t even bother asking her. Instead you ran away. You were going to kill your son, a man who has spent two hundred years shaping himself into whatever you needed, just so you could avoid  _ your mess _ .” The last two words would have been unrecognizable to humans.

His jaw cracks over the phone. “Yes.” 

Bran doesn’t apologize. Knowing him, he thought through his actions, and he also knows how fucked it all was. I don’t think he’s too old to learn new tricks of how to not be a fucking sociopath.

“On behalf on those who don’t have to bow to your authority, you are a fucking moron and a complete asshole. And on behalf of Leah, who I kinda liked by the end of it, fuck off, Bran. She deserved to be treated as an equal, not just a fucking peice of property or a pawn. She, and I, deserve better than your manipulations and lies.” I hang up, furious with him, and with myself.

I had started to see the good in him. I still don’t think he’s evil, or at least his wolf isn’t. And maybe I could’ve gotten over the whole thing with Leah, but I  _ like  _ Charles, despite myself. It puts him trying to get me to help Bran into a whole new perspective. If I didn’t have enough problems, I’d start studying how to transfer pack bonds.

  
  


I don’t tell Anna or Charles about my conversation. I, unlike Bran, don’t need to throw my personal shit around. And it’s very much none of their business. Charles takes us to some restaurant he knows to thank me for yesterday’s work. Before breakfast can arrive, I get a call from a Fae contact. “There’s a troll at Cal-some lake.” I toe my boots back on, and slide the knife that had spent the night under my pillow pack into my ankle holster. “Better get a move on.” Charles is calling Bran within seconds, getting the lowdown. Anna’s calling the pack up.

“They’re not going to help,” she reports. “They don’t have the resources to handle it this.”

I want to swear, but I can understand. Some of the packs have started handling supernatural business like Hauptman, but others simply don’t have the resources to. The San Antonio pack is small, and usually just a temporary refugee for immigrants. The area is heavily religious and old school. The city doesn’t know that it’s hosting the pack to begin with. Most of the American packs are still hidden, thanks to Bran’s chess games. It’s for the safety of the humans, more so than the safety of the werewolves. Although, that does play a part. There is a concern that people will hunt them for sport, and there have been cases of lone wolves turning up dead or injured.

“Okay,” I tell them. “I’ve taken a troll down before.”I shudder. It hadn’t gone well, but I’d done it. Charles drives us downtown, breaking into somebody’s old car. I don’t bother with a seatbelt, and I sit on the first edge of the backseat so I can see what’s happening. There isn’t a question that the two are going to help. They’re do-gooders.

I pull a short sword out of my pack as we slide to a stop. The troll is large, bright green, and female. I growl in frustration at the lack of an obvious weakness. I get out of the car. “Clear the humans,” I tell Charles. I brandish the sword, and hesitate, but there’s nothing else to say. I rush the troll.

Well-I leap back at the troll tries to kick me- I was saying that I liked hitting things. I guess this is my opportunity. I slam the sword into the troll’s tendons, and dart back. Right now, I’m distracting the cursed thing. Humans are fleeing from the lake. I stand knee deep in the water, and it has me at a disadvantage. Wolf magic is air and earth, not water. It’s why I can put things to rest and conceal people without a lot of effort. 

The troll keeps hammering me down. I keep getting up. I remember sinking into the mud and drowning. That’s when I lose it, I reckon. I set the damn thing on fire. I can see it burning up above the water, but it’s foot doesn’t move. It just crushes me down, down into the mud, into the darkness. I know nothing more.


	4. Is it easier to go or is it easier to stay?

I’m being held down, pinned by something big and worried. “It’s all right, it’s all right. Anna, get Sam. Shh, shh. That’s it,” I hear above me, but I can’t figure out what’s happening. I fade back out.

I wake again to somebody turning me over. “Adam, I’m going to need your help with this,” I hear. I fight them, in a fall on drag out fight that I can’t quite see right in. I don’t know who I’m fighting, but I can smell the sink of a hospital. I can feel myself losing. My leg doesn’t want to hold my weight and these people are nervous. They’re scared of hurting me. I feel no such thing about them. I break somebody’s nose and shatter another one’s knee before they take me down.

“She’s going to fight,” somebody says, pinning me down to a table. They pull restraints over me.

“He should be here in the morning. How is she still fighting?” The voice turns to me. “It’s all right. I promise. I promise we’re not here to hurt you. Shhh. That’s it, go to sleep.” Against everything in me, I fall back under.

I come awake when Bran gets there. That round, I break his nose. “Easy, easy,” Bran says, keeping Charles back from me. “It’s all right,” he tells his son. I’m aware enough to know that I shouldn’t  _ want _ to fight him, but everything’s screwed up. He feels safe, and that makes him a threat. “It’s all right.” He takes a step toward me, and I realize where I am.

Hauptman’s house. Last thing I really remember was the trull. I try to get up again, to get away from Bran, to not do what my wolf wants. I start shivering. The smell is really getting to me, and I can’t-

“Shh. Easy. Easy,” Bran murmurs. There’s something wrong with my leg. I can’t feel it, and not in a fun numb way. “Shh. Easy.” I manage to tear through the restraints. Adam’s standing behind Bran, grumpy and his face is swollen. I’d broken  _ his _ nose. I huddle back on the table. “It’s okay.” I don’t say anything, willing to see where this is going. “Okay. Okay.” Bran takes a few steps towards me.

“Bran-”

“It’s fine. We’re all right. Everybody’s all right,” the Marrok tells me. He holds out a blanket. And that’s when I realize I’m bare. Panic washes over me, drenching the room in the scent. Adam leaves at that. I can hear him and Samuel outside of the room. Charles comes to stand behind Bran. “It’s all right,” he repeats. I shake my head at him, trying to catch up. It’s all so wrong. He holds the blanket out more, and I snatch it up with my right arm. My left hangs limp at my shoulder, and I don’t look at it. “All right,” he murmurs. “Everything’s okay.”

Slowly, very slowly, I start tracking more and more. And as soon as I do, the pain and shock fully sets in. Bran is suddenly at my side. “It’s okay,” he tells me. “Samuel’s just going to fix you up a bit. Easy, easy.” I lose more time. He has his hands cradling my head and holding me still. I can feel Samuel closing in, and I try to fight him to no avail. “Shh, shh. No one’s going to hurt you. I got you. Calm. Calm.” I fall back under.

I come to and I’m laying on Bran’s lap. I try to tense but my muscles don’t respond. I can hear him and Charles talking in low voices.

“I didn’t know what to do, so I brought her to Adam. I didn’t even think-”

“You did the right thing. Samuel saved her life.” There’s plain relief in his voice. “I thought she’d died from the bond.” He’s not petting me or doing any of that romantic nonsense. He also lets me pretend to be asleep.

“She’s not going to be happy with this,” Charles says. “I can’t believe she took down a troll.”

“Hmm. I can. I-I owe you an apology,” Bran says. I do blink my eyes open at that. He’s doing it where I can hear it-not a good sign. “Ash clarified matters for me. Leah-” his voice cracks “-what I did-running away-was a disservice to you. I put you in a poor position, and expected you to do my work for me. I’m sorry for it.”

“This why Ash was mad at you?” There’s a beat. “She’s not good at hiding her emotions.”

“No, no she’s not.” There’s chagrin in his voice, but I can’t tell of it’s forged or not. I try to stir but fade back out.

I remember fighting them again, and Bran shifting. Everything settled then. I could help my terror when the man was around, if I was fully awake and in control. But as out of it was I was, I’d seen him only as a threat. Bran-the-wolf was safe. Bran-the-wolf had comforted me in that cell, cuddled against me, and cloaked us in safety. I relaxed fully, and went back to sleep.

I come to, hopefully breaking the spell. This time around, Bran is laying in his fur across my hip. He’s head lays on my stomach, which his head pointed towards the door. Apart from him, I’m alone in the room. I kick the blankets off and start to take stock. He grumbles a little, but moves so I can sit up. Samuel had done horrible things to my arm and leg, splinting them so I can’t move them at all. I swear, and bite my lip at the pain but I do manage to sit up. Bran provides himself as a brace.

“I wouldn’t recommend trying to get out of bed.” It’s Sam. He’s standing in the doorway, careful to not look at me, and keep his eyes on his Da.

“I’m all right,” I tell him. “Thanks for putting me back together. How long was I out?” I pinch the bridge of my nose, a gesture that I caught from Bran.

“Three and a half days.” Sensing that I was calm, he entered the room, and shut the door. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it,” he tells me.

“Hmm. Anna? Charles?”

“They’re fine. Charles is furious with you for taking the troll out.” He sits down on a stool by the bed. “You’re at Hauptman’s. I was in town, so Charles brought you here.”

“That can’t have been easy. Thank you.”

He grinned a bit. “You cracked my nose. My own fault,” he assures me, “I thought you were a poor, harmless thing.” He snorts. “My fault.” I sit up more fully, and have to take a minute to breath through the pain. Bran paws at me, but doesn’t pin me back down.

“I hurt anybody?”

“You crushed my knee. Not sure how you did it. And you broke Charle’s nose. He’s proud, not mad.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, happy that I’m not Fae for how often I have to apologize. “I wasn’t myself and-”

He waves it off. “It was my own fault. I should’ve known better. It’s why we called Bran. We thought he could help you.” I tugged at one of Bran’s ears. He huffs at me. “Once he shifted, you were calm.” I nod, unsurprised. He waits for an explanation.

“Hmm. What’s the damage?” I ask him.

“Broken arm, leg. Most of your left side was shattered.” He rubs at his face, and I’d bet that he’s been awake for the past four days. “Everything should heal.” At his words, my strength leaves me. “All right,” he murmurs, easing me back to the bed. “Charles wants you to drink this.” It’s tea, and disgusting.

“Thought he liked me.” Sam smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m fine,” I tell him. “You have my pack?” He nods. “There’s a shackle in there.” Bran shifts around, knowing what’s coming. I ignore him. “You’ll need to lock it around my ankle. My magic’s coming back, and normally I’d be fine, but I can’t control it like this.” Not when I’m being housed in a basement and everything seems like wolves.

Samuel shakes his head. “Charles says he can contain it.”

“Let’s not try it. I don’t want vines and trees to start growing in Adam’s house.”

“You’re a plant mage?”

I start to shrug, but stop. “Sam. Please.” At my look, he goes and finds the shackle.

_ I’m sorry that I can’t help _ , Bran tells me.

“Not your fault.” I look at him. “How badly did I hurt you before you figured it out?” Bran knew that I was terrified of him. I let him think that some, if not all of it, was from his wolf.

_ I got it pretty fast. I remember the time in the witch’s cell as well. _ He hesitates then says,  _ you broke my wrist. I didn’t know that you are less scared of Charles and Samuel than me in human form. _

I blink. “I didn’t know that either.” It’s because my wolf, and therefore me, had never seen them as romantic partners.

_ You know, Charles and Anna mated wolf first, and then human half later,  _ he tells me, almost wistful.

“I got nothing for you, Bran. Anna is better than me.” We stop talking at the sound of Samuel trodding back down the steps.

“This blocks your powers?” he asks, holding up the old shackle. I nod. “And it won’t hurt you?” I hesitate. “Ash, will this hurt you?”

“Only what is necessary,” I tell him. “Doc, right now, I’m out of it. Your da has my wolf in hand, but he can’t help with the human half, and that’s the half that’s dangerous.”

“You’re not in control.” There’s a coldness that comes over his face. “Werewolves who aren’t in control don’t-”

“Ariana, your mate, is she always in control around werewolves?” I ask, cranky and in pain. He flinches. I gentle my voice. “Doc, I’m in control. Put the shackle on my right ankle.” He does what I ask, and I lay back. “Thank you.”

Later when the pain is less, and I’m sure that Bran is asleep, I start my explanation to Samuel. He’s been sitting there, reading through some medical text. “I was brutalized by wolves before.” He doesn’t look up from his book, but his full attention is on me. I can hear Charles resting outside with Anna. “Common torture, you know how it goes.” I dismiss it. “They made me hurt others. I couldn't stop, and now I doubt I’d injure you very badly, but if I thought you were going to make me hurt Bran, or Charles, or anybody, I could kill you.” I run my good hand through Bran’s coat, trying to get it to stop shaking.

“That’s what you’re scared of.”

“Yeah.”

He still doesn’t look up from his book. If he had, I think I would have seen his wolf looking out at me. “It would be a feedback loop.” I nod. He understands. “What did they do to you?”

I bark out a laugh, and tug at Bran’s ear since he’s been awake. “I don’t always know,” I tell him. “The witches had a doctor that would cut me up. Loop off a limb to watch it grow back.”

“But using you to hurt your pack is what-”

“-is what broke me, yeah.” I stare at my hand. “It’s what I regret most, and it’s what allowed me to break their magic.” I rub at Bran’s ears. “I’m sorry for hurting you and Charles.”

Samuel shakes his head. “It’s a risk I take when operating on injured wolves. My call. My choice,” he reassures me. “You know, every time you hurt me, you stepped between me and somebody else? Same with the times you hurt Charles. This explains that.” He closes the book. “I should go get you some food. Any preference?”

“No meat.”

“Ash-”

“Fine, fish if Adam has it.” Sam leaves. Charles comes in.

“Was Bran’s apology to do with you or me?” he asks. Like I said, I like Charles.

“Me. Though I didn’t ask for it.” I let him hear the anger in my tone. Bran whined a little, pawing at my good leg. I kick him with it, getting him in the least desirable part. He slinks off the bed, whining. Charles lets him out and shuts the door.

“Why?”

I hold his eyes, and even weak on a bed, I am still a power. “Because when Bran claimed me, even if I dispute it, even if I hate it, you are mine,” I growl. “And I like you, and he did his damndest to break you, even if you can’t see it.”

“I don’t need you to protect me.”

“No, you don’t. But aside from Anna, I’m the only wolf who can deal with him on equal ground. And unlike Anna, I don’t have to be concerned about your feelings to call your father out.” He doesn’t drop his eyes, but he does look away, ending our dominante contest. Turns out, Charles is wiser than me. Not exactly a surprise. “He fucked up. He’s spent too long playing chessmaster. I’d call him out again. That’s supposed to be my job, right? That’s what you and your brother want from me?” I show him my teeth. “Not that I’m going to take it up. I like myself a little too much to put up with him, thank the gods. I am sorry that you got caught up in it, and I am sorry for breaking your nose.”

“I think,” Charles says slowly, “that you have surprised my Da, which is very uncommon. I would be prepared to be surprised in return, if I were you.”

And before I could answer him, Samuel came back with food. Between the two of them, I was able to eat. It was fish in oatmeal, which is apparently one of Adam’s specialities. “It’s bland,” Samuel explains. “It should settle your stomach.”

“I’ve been throwing up?” I ask, leaning against Charles so I could take another bite.

“Aggressively. It’s why we called Bran. In part.”

“Food wasn’t always safe, for me.” I ignore the scent of their anger and go back to eating the food. “When can I get out of here?”

“When you can stand on your own,” Samuel says vaguely. “Now, I need to check your injuries.”

“Afraid you botched it?” I ask him, willing and ready to pick a fight. The food had given me some of my strength back, even if the fish unsettled my still rocky stomach.

Sam catches my eyes. “I just want to check.”

“How about if I let you-” Charles mouths “let” - “let you, then I get to leave this room and go upstairs.”

“Deal.”

“Does Charles need to be here?” I ask. “I’ve had enough people see me naked and injured for a lifetime-”

“I’ve already seen it, and you could break Samuel again,” Charles tells me flatly.

“This is gross,” I say, but I let them move me around so I’m sitting up right with Charles supporting my weight. “You are my sons, technically.”

“Technically,” Samuel says, firmly. “Besides, werewolves aren’t modest creatures.” After that, he starts doing painful things and I shut up.

When he’s finished, Charles starts in. “It is my honor, my privilege to protect those who cannot protect themselves. You know this honor.” His words are overly formal, making me think that he spent time thinking it over. I can hear Anna breathing on the other side of the door; Bran as well. Private conversations are a rare thing for wolves, but this was not intended to be private. “I do not like killing those I protect. I did not like Leah, but I respected her. I would have killed her because she hurt the pack, because she betrayed us. Asking my father to do it, was too much.”

“I agree,” I say simply.

“And still you are mad at him.” Charles is good people, I think. Anna still has a ways to go on his self-worth. He’s too pragmatic.

“I am mad because he did not confront Leah, as a honorable person would have. If he had, he would have been forced to kill her,” I admit. “I can see that side of it. If he had asked you to kill her, he would be weaker still, not able to uphold his own laws. However, he did not ask her because he did not trust her. He set up a trap for you, her, and the pack. Bran knew that you, being a man of great honor, would kill her. He knew that you would know that he would then have to kill you. His wolf would not let anything else happen.” I sigh. “I understand his actions. I can even understand his reasoning, but only a dishonorable man would send somebody else to carry out a job in his place. That is why I am mad at him, because at the end of the day, Leah still could have died at your hand. Bran would have killed you, for being what he trained you to be.”

“I’m starting to understand why Da’s direwolf is attracted to you,” Samuel tells me as Charles takes in my speech. “You protect those who cannot protect themselves.”

“Charles damn well can do his own protecting,” I tell him, irritated. “If Bran hadn’t made his apology into a power play we wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have said shit to Charles. No offense. But I don’t like beating a dead horse, which is what this conversation amounts to.”

“I don’t know,” Charles says slowly. “I think we covered a lot of ground here.” He catches my eyes, easy to do with how close we are on the bed. “You’re not something Da picked up just to satisfy his wolf. You have a better understanding of him and his faults than Leah did when he mated her.”

“It takes a monster to know a monster.” I use my chin to point to his nose, which is almost healed. “I would thank you and Samuel to stop interfering. Geez, now we all sound like we’re on a sitcom.” I look at Samuel “Now, am I allowed out of this bed?”

I manage to argue that I not only am I going to use a crutch and not be carried, but cuff or not, it wouldn’t end well if Charles carried me. I did thank him for the offer. Short story, I got to gimp my way up stairs while Charles watched to make sure I didn’t pass out. Adam was working from home, and in his office. I ignored that. I found Bran watching  _ Doctor Who _ on a sofa, and sat down to him. Charles, knowing a dismissal when it wasn’t given, left us. The scent of my fear had risen a bit when I sat down, but slowly dissipated. Bran says nothing, waiting it out patiently.

“Sorry,” I say, apologizing for needing him because I was defenseless right now. He made a tone of disagreement, pulled my feet into his lap. He probably thought it was his honor or something to care for me. We both watched the show, not quite knowing what to say to each other. I fall asleep like that. I’m getting tired of how much sleeping I’m doing.

I wake to a low conversation. Adam and Mercy. I’m not fully awake, but I do catch, “the role reversal is nice,” Adam says. Bran still has my feet captive.

“There is some irony here,” Mercy agrees. I wake fully at that, ready to discuss irony with her. But. I, apparently, wasn’t the only one who fell asleep.

Bran is sacked out, head rolling backwards on the couch, mouth open and snoring. He has one hand on my good foot. Most people when they sleep, they ease, stress lines disappear, tension goes away. Bran, who is contractorary in all things, is more tense. His body is relaxed, but his face has dropped the guise of being an art major at a dinky community college town. He lets how a long snore, and the image is broken a little bit. I think we all pin our expectations on Bran, and he wears them so well, that the realness of him goes away for a little while.

I blink, realizing that I’ve been looking at him too long. I catch Mercy’s eyes. She’d been looking at me. “You gonna give me a lecture too?” I ask her.

“Nope. Figure you got enough of those. But I got cookies in the oven, and a fresh plate on the counter.” I get up carefully, not wanting to disturb Bran. He doesn’t move- too worn out, I bet. I gimp my way to the kitchen bar, and let Mercy plate up some cookies. I appreciate that Mercy’s solution to all terrible things is chocolate.

“Thanks,” I get out around a mouthful of the things. Adam considers me. I ignore him. He’ll do what he wants when he’s good and ready. In the mean time, I make appropriate noises over Mercy’s baking.

“I’ve really come to appreciate the neutral territory of the Tri-Cities,” he says, clearly for my benefit. Nothing good came from Mercy’s declaration-other than Bran is not really supposed to be here. “It really helps people who are-” he grasps for the right word.

“Different,” Mercy offers.

“Different,” he says with a nod, “find a home.” I take another bite of cookie, and try to not cram the whole thing in my mouth. They’re wooing me, and doing a good job of it too. Adam should’ve shut up and helped Mercy turn butter for more cookies. “There’s also so many parks and wilderness,” he continues in a thoughtful voice. Adam doesn’t like manipulating. He’s more what-you-see-is-what-you-get type. Mercy is the sneaky one, but I forgive her because chocolate is a good weapon. “Somebody could run for miles without seeing another soul.”

“And being a mecca for the weird,” Mercy continues, helpfully sliding another cookie onto my plate, “there’s gotta be a lot of work for detectives.”

“That might put you out of a job,” Adam suggests.

“Nah, I bet there’s plenty of work to go around. Tri-Cities is only getting weirder. Pretty soon, we’ll beat out Portland.”

“Can I have a glass of milk?” I ask Mercy. “These are damn good.” She gives me a glass of milk. I chug it down. They wait. “I am not going to get killed by vampires or fae, right?” I ask them. They don’t bother to answer; it was rhetorical. “This isn’t some way to tug Bran’s tail, right? Like he’s got an omega and now you got an omega? ‘Sides, if I stay, I am not joining your pack.”

“Fine by me, but the offer is there,” Adam says.

“I might bring more trouble than I’m worth,” I warn him.

He shrugs. “We’re getting good with trouble, and until you pass Mercy up, it’ll be fine.” He smiles. “Besides, it seems like most of the trouble you find is from helping people.” There’s a note of respect there. Adam knows all about helping people. “And this is not a powerplay between Bran and me. You are not pack, and you do not need to help us. I might,” he says because Adam likes being honest when he can, “ask you to consult, and I will then of course pay your fee.”

I eat another cookie, mulling it over. “The money fee might be exchanged for cookies,” I warn. Mercy grins a bit. I have a feeling that she’s won over a lot of people with her baking. I sigh. “I’ll have to deal with the fae.” I think it through a bit more, and decide that I do like ruffling their feathers. “All right,” I tell them. “Give me a month or so to move. I think most of my stuff in London can be left there.” My leg gives a jolt of pain. “Never mind, I can have a friend ship what needs to be shipped.” George would be sad, but he’ll understand my reasoning.

Adam blinks at me. “We will of course, want you to stay here, while you’re recovering so that nobody tries to attack you, and you have to kill them. For the treaty,” he says, making his gentle tone a touch sarcastic. I can see what Mercy likes about him.

“Of course. Wouldn’t want to let the treaty go to waste.” I match his tone, but make it more serious when I say, “thank you.”

“You are of course, welcome to stay here while you recover and find a place to live. I never did properly thank you for finding Jesse, and it does make me-us- happy to give back.”

I shake my head at him. “The fee covered that. No debt between us,” I say firmly.

“Still. You are welcome here anytime.” He politely ignores the smell of my terror.

“Thank you for the offer,” I say, and surprising myself that I mean it. “I still have itchy feet,” I tell them. “I like to travel, and I’m gonna go back to Mexico to help-”

“-not necessary,” Bran interrupts. “I’m going to send some people to take care of the border disputes.”

“You-you are going to help humans?” I ask, incredulous.

He nods. “I’m going myself as well. Charles and Anna are leaving. They went to the hotel to pack.”

Suddenly, I realized what Bran had done.

I don’t think it was open manipulation, more like giving us both options. Sure, Charles had taken me here for Samuel, but he could’ve just as easily taken me to Aspen. This way, I had a more stable relationship with a nearby pack. Bran could keep an eye on me, but he also found a way to satisfy us both. I could be independent, but I had enough people that I wouldn’t die from killing a troll. It was luck that Charles, Anna, and I weren’t dead.

Bran was doing his best to keep the balance between my need to be independent and his need to keep me safe. The maneuvering should have made me angry, and it did, but it also made me feel more respect for him.

Because it had been decades since I had an ounce of trust for a werewolf pack. It had been decades since I ran with a pack. Werewolves, though some don’t like it, are social creatures. I got by having George and a few others. I’d spent a decade lying to myself that I liked being alone before I tired of it. I like being alone because alone is safe.

“You heading out then?” I ask Bran. He nods.

He hesitates with a look at Adam and Mercy, and says “I am. Can I have a moment of your time?” he asks, polite and meek. He knows that I saw his chess playing. I rub at the back of my neck, and give the cookies a regretful look, but I agree.

We go for a walk outside. It’s far enough that we can pretend that Adam and Mercy can’t hear us. Bran keeps his hands to himself as I fiddle with the crutch. Sam had told me that I shouldn’t bear weight on my leg, and I should stay in bed. Bran’s tense with his want to help me down the steps and over to the stone bench. I make it, and sit down on the bench like I’m not in pain.

“You’re right,” he says. He rubs his hands on his jeans, a nervous fidgety gesture, even though he’s not a fidgety person. I think he has a hundred gestures to appear human. I know I have my own. Bran waits to see if I’ll ask what. I don’t. Eventually he continues. “I was wrong about Leah and Charles. I should have found another way.” He sits there, almost hunched as if I’m about to start beating him. Leah might’ve. She had a sword for a tongue.

“All right,” I say instead, letting him hear my forgiveness. I don’t say  _ I accept your apology _ because he hadn’t apologized. And he shouldn’t have to-at least not to me, not about this. Besides, he’s more than likely to commit the same stupidity again.

“I’m taking your advice,” he says. “I found a therapist in Troy. Charles cleared them.” I raise my eyebrows. I don’t remember telling him that he should seek professional help; maybe he caught it every time I thought it when he said something stupid.

“You found a therapist that close to you? Isn’t Troy a one-stop-light town?” So maybe I studied a map or two, trying to find Aspen Creek. You can’t find it on a map apparently, but I got a good idea about the geography.

His face gets a little rougher. “Fine. I found somebody I like willing to move to Troy. It was the smallest they’d go. Part of it is me, and part of it is Anna has been on me to find a therapist for the pack. I’m hoping I can convince them to move to Aspen.” Good luck with that.

“Well, if it’s for the pack.” I soften my tone. “I’m happy you’re going to try it,” I tell him.

“Yeah, well, Charles tear your head off?” he asks.

“Thanks for that. You going to the Border for me?” I do my best to not shy away when I want to. Heck, I even let Samuel rebandage my wounds.

“Has to be done. You’re right. Too many people are being hurt. I can convince the Fae and wolves to help. They know all about forced migrations. I’ll do my best. The therapist, his name’s Eric, is gonna skype with me while I’m down there. Charles is coming with for a few days to take to ICE and explain how not letting wolves over is a bad idea.” Bran smiles brightly at me. “I’m going as his submissive. I found some other wolves around that area who are happy to work with law enforcement, as well as investigative service.”

“Thank you.”

He waves it off. “We could use the PR, and it’s the right thing to do.”

“I’m still mad at you,” I tell him. I am, too. Most of it’s faded, but it’s still there. “Angerier that you thought apologizing to Charles would either work on me, or Charles would work on me.”

“That was-that was a bad idea,” he admits. “I meant the apology to Charles.”

“I know. That makes it worse. You turned a moment about your son into a manipulation about me.” I catch his hand in my good one. “You need to stop trying to guess around me. You keep-you keep acting like a few apologies and good acts will convince me. I’m not going to be your wife, Bran. I’m sorry for it, but I like myself too much to fall for you.”

“Because of my wolf.”

“Because of you. It’s never been the wolf that’s the problem.” I wish I’d bit my tongue. It hurts him. “I get that you’re trying to heal yourself, and that’s right and good. You should. If I could figure out how to break the bond, I would. You need time to heal and grieve.” I hesitate, and try to say what I really mean. “We’re not  _ right _ for each other.”

“I disagree,” he says. “I’m not going to force you-”

“Thanks,” I say, dry and almost a growl.

“I think that we are right for each other. The bond wouldn’t have taken if we weren’t-”

“You don’t know that. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be against this? You were at the time. Hell, you were when I drove you back. All of this is starting to sound like one of those sexual harassment videos they show at the office.”

“Am I harassing you?” Bran is concerned. I can smell and feel it.

“I-” I want to lie. He would leave me alone. Bran, though he fights it, is a good man. All he wants from this world, is to keep his safe. That’s all. He would leave me alone. “I-” I meet his eyes. “No, you haven’t. In spite of your dominating personality, you’ve done your best to leave me alone.” He’s relieved. I feel horrible. I’m not trying to string him along, I’m not. I haven’t found a way to break the bond.

Bran had told me that if I wished, I could take another wolf to mate. That would supersede the bond. To the supernatural world, I am technically, still on the market. However, I don’t want to take anybody to mate. And even if I did, that is a technicality, not reality. Only an insane person would try to take the Marrok’s mate-if they knew the circumstances in the first place.

“Well, if it’s in spite of my personality,” he murmurs. But we both know I was joking enough for it to not be serious. I withdraw my hand, realizing that he’d been rubbing it for several long minutes. Dang. He smirks a bit, and decides to quit while he’s ahead. “I guess I best be going. Call me anytime.”

“You start texting?” I ask. I’d learned pretty quick that any text I sent him would go unanswered, but 3am phone calls were fine.

“No.” He hugs me before driving off in a truck. I’d find out later that he took the truck all the way down to the border, recruiting a few werewolves along the way who wanted to help.

Eventually, I get the willpower to go back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun trying to guess where Aspen Creek is. The hurog forum has been weird the past month, which probably made this go a lot faster. It's near Troy and Libby though.


	5. Suddenly this summer, it's clear I never had the courage of my convictions

Six months go by, relatively peaceable. I found an apartment with Mary Jo and Warren’s help in West Pasco. It was a studio with terrible carpeting, but the rent was within my budget. I mention once to Mercy that I’ve worked around auto shops before as I’m trying to find a spare job to supplement my income, and suddenly I’m answering the phone for her four days a week. She also convinced me into doing, and paying me to do, her paperwork as I wait for my detective agency to get off the ground.

I like paperwork. I do enough of it to get by with my own taxes. I’ve always been good at methodical work, especially with numbers. It’s why I’m good at keeping myself off the grid, and avoiding people like Charles who can really use computers. The detective work does start up, but much of it is dull: lost dogs, cheaters. Or it’s the scary cases.

I’d done well at avoiding the fae. They’ve ignored me, and I’ve ignored them. Besides, I’m not all that powerful. I use lay lines and herbs, and they’d rather not bother me for it. It’d mean that I was more powerful than they want me to be.

“You bill that guy with the-”

“1976 bug? Yeah, emailed it all to him as well.” Tad keeps looking at me. It’s been a few months. You’d think he’d get used to me by now. Obviously he needed time to warm up to asking awkward questions.

“What are you?” he asks out of nowhere. I can hear him over the sound of Mercy swearing heartily at an engine.

“Little of this, little of that. Sorta like my gram’s secrete sauce. Never the same twice.” I grin at him. I can lie, and often do when I think I can get away with it. He lets it go for another week or so.

Mercy invites us all over to Adam’s for dinner. Adam is a damn good cook, and I accept.

He and I have had a few rocky starts. The month I stayed in his house healing, for one. I don’t often join the pack on moon nights, and I am still a lone wolf. Six months in, we’re good. He knows better than to give me orders, or I charm his house to do something mildly annoying, like change his left sock to pink if he walks through a certain doorway. Per say. And I know better than to really get on his nerves, or he’ll show up at my office and scowl at some poor human who just wants his wife to get a divorce. It’s been good.

“You still not eating meat?” Adam asks, giving me the stink eye.

“Nope. You got any fish I can fry up?” I ask. He’s made some potatoes, green beans, and all sorts. It’s nearing Thanksgiving, being November 1st, but this isn’t the feast yet.

“Nope,” he tells me. It’s not a lie, but I have a feeling it’s as good a manipulation as any. It also smells of Mercy and Samuel trying to be sneaky. I spoon double mash potatoes onto my plate, and add another fork of yams.

“Thank you,” I say, meek, lowering my eyes and all. Maybe I’ll do pink underwear next time.

He waits until we’re all seated to ask “you see Samuel for the sixth month check in?”

“I texted him yesterday.” I had, too, because Samuel was pushing that I should go see Bran for Thanksgiving. “We made plans.” Plans that entailed me not going to Aspen for Thanksgiving. I smile sunnily at Adam, and go back to eating. As he opens his mouth, I engage Mercy in a debate on what she should paint the shop. She, ready and willing to be an accomplice, argues against the neon green I’d been voting for. I dig into the yamps, and happily ignore Adam wanting to ask me questions. I watch Adam decide to pick his battles, and join my side of the neon green.

Samuel, being a wise soul, hadn’t pushed about the frankly absurd six month checkup that Adam had talked about to him and me. He just showed up at my apartment after I got back from Adam’s. I unlock my car. It’s a crap shoot of Mercy’s that she’d been kind enough to lend to me, because she wanted somebody to test drive it for a month. Generally, I walked to her office, and mine, or I’d run the distance.

I unlock my flat, and wave him on inside. I like Sam. I do. He’d invited me around his and Ariana’s place about once a month for dinner. I like Ariana too. They’re good folks, and because they’re good folks, they don’t know how to keep their nose out of my business. It’s called caring, apparently.

“Adam?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “He didn’t call me. I-” he hesitates- “I would be grateful if I could check to make sure that your injuries are fine.”

I drag it out. I set my bag down, and unbelt my knife. I wouldn’t be taken aware again. “You saw me last Thursday-” the full moon - “did I look injured?”

“No. But you wear a glamour.”

When I was sick, the glamour had fallen enough that Samuel could treat my wounds. Samuel must’ve smelled the lingering magic. It had fallen not enough to reveal my true nature or show all the scars, but enough. I’d been smart a while back and created layers and layers. Any new injuries would show up, but the old remained covered.

“Anybody else know?” I ask, pretending that I didn’t know what had happened.

“Charles, and Da. Mercy maybe; magic doesn't work on her.” I doubted Mercy. I got enough scars on my arms that they get a reaction from folks. I wasn’t too worried about Charles either. From what I know, he’s a vault.

“Okay. Thanks. Door’s behind you.” My voice is harder than he deserves. He shifts to make himself look like less of a threat. I’m not particularly fooled. Sam’s as old as Bran, or near abouts. He knows how to lie with body language.

Samuel doesn’t leave. Instead he hitches a hip on my desk and says, “I’m dominant and old.” We both breath through my panic at ‘dominant.’ “I don’t have a lot of friends left, and I like worrying over those I do have.” He doesn’t lift his eyes to mine, but keeps them on the ground, yielding to me. I grit my teeth and think it over.

“I’m not dropping the glamour. I’ll show you the injuries from the troll.”

“Is there anything else I should be concerned about?”

I shut my eyes at that and steel myself. “None that you can help. Take my offer or leave it.”

“Okay.” I glare at him for good measure, but I go and get a sheet from my the closet. There’s no need to be fully naked in front of the man. He turns his back. Samuel doesn’t tell me that it’s useless because he’s seen it all at this point. I’m more than a little angry at that.

“I-I appreciate your concern, and I am grateful to be your friend.” He nods, focused on my left side. All of the marks had vanished. The bones had all healed well enough. Samuel focuses on my foot.

“This is still here,” he says, poking at the ankle scar.

“Yeah, that one’s permanent.” It takes a lot to scar a werewolf. It’s damn near impossible. Witchcraft works fine though. Most of my body is a lacework of light scars that the wolf tries to heal. He pokes more at it. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but when he claps his hands around it, I have to jerk back. It is damn near impossible to glamour so I often don’t bother, and wear boots or long jeans instead.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, and moves on. He manipulates my shoulder around, but that had healed fine. “Okay. Can you hop on your left leg for me.” I hasten to do that, and he adds, “without trying to mask your scent.”

“Habit.” It hurts a bit, but the leg has healed. He goes back to twisting my foot around once I stop and sit back down on the table. “It’s fine, doc. It’s an old injury that just aches when it rains.”

“That’s all?” I grind my teeth. If I wasn’t wolf, I’d have to find a damn good dentist. “Thought not. Okay. Can I see your ribs?”

“Yeah. Turn your back.” He did. I rearranged the sheet so that only my stomach was showing. I carefully let the glamour drop there and nowhere else. “Okay.” I keep my eyes over his shoulder so I don’t have to watch his eyes.

“Okay. You’re still underweight,” he says finally, after prodding my stomach for a bit.

“Hmm.”

“You can get dressed.” I throw back on my clothes, and tighten up the glamour. “Ari thinks her scars make her hideous.” There’s a note of derision in his voice. It’s clear that Ari could have most of her melted off and Samuel would still think she’s the most beautiful thin in existence.

I lift up one finger. “The Other pay too much attention to the really beautiful or the really ugly,” I tell him. I lift up a second finger. “I don’t mind my scars. I actually like them because they mark me as survivor.” I lift ip a third finger. “I do not have to put up with stupid people or well-meaning people.” I raise my eyebrows at him. I put up a forth finger. “I like Ari, and she deserves her wounds in whatever shape they come in. I think you are good for her, though it is not my business.”

He nods sharply. I can see how for him, my traumatic past is a reminder of Ariana. Although, she has never asked me, and I have never asked her. It is odd that we are less bothered by it than him. Apart from our collective PTSD, that is.

I remember sharply that although I try to ignore it, I am proof that something like me can exist. I look at Samuel, and move to touch his upper arm. He freezes, careful and gentle in how he turns. It take me a minute, but eventually I speak.

“Fae and werewolves can interbreed.” My voice is wooden. I’d seen him with Jesse and Aiden, longing in his eyes. It’s probably the reason Adam could never truly hate him for wanting Mercy years and years ago. “It’s not done often because of how recluse the races are, but it can happen.” I hesitate, but add. “I may be wrong, you understand, but from what I learned it can be done with no risk to the female.” I can’t call the thing that birthed me a female.

His eyes are gentle and a little wet. “Thank you. We’ve been-well, we haven’t been careful, but thank you.” There’s relief in every line of his body.

I add quickly, “the fae aren’t happy about it, and some have been sterilized, but it-it can be done.”

“Did you know your-?” I shake my head, unable to prevent the frog in my throat. “Thank you,” he tells me, giving the words enough weight that if I wanted, he knows, I could ask for a favor.

I shake my head. “It’s nothing. It’s not anything you didn’t already figure out.” He looks like he wants to add more, so I keep talking. I don’t need his gratitude. I still feel a little bad for hurting him when he was just trying to help. Like Adam, it’s not his fault that people got to me before him. “Thank you,” I say. “For-” I grasp for the right word. “For being my friend. I didn’t have a lot of them until this year. And I am grateful.” 

“Back atcha.” There’s a beat where we consider each other. “I guess I’ll go. I told Ari I’d pick up Chinese. She works late hours,” he explains, recognizing that I want our talk to be over. Ariana runs a bookshop, and does part time research for those interested. I’d asked her a time or two about a case.

“Drive safe,” I tell him, and show him to the door.

I sigh, and lean my head against the door. I’m not used to having this many people give a shit about me. I had allies and contacts the world over, but I’ve spent a long time keeping the world out. I lived in the world, but was not part of it.

I pick up my phone after the third ring. “You okay?” Bran asks.

From what I’ve gathered, the therapy has gone well. Anna  _ just _ managed to talk Bran down from instituting ‘circle time.’ He could’ve done it, but I think Eric would’ve had more work. Charles is properly grateful for Eric, from what I hear, not that he’s gone. Anna has though.

“Yeah. Hey, I know we’re weird and all, but thank you.”

I don’t know how he knows, but he says, “nobody should be alone.”

“Hmm. I’m good. I’m gonna go make pasta, unless you had something you wanted to talk about? You good?”

“Nah. Yeah, I’m all right. Have a good night.” In retrospect, that should’ve been a sign, but I was too tried to think. We hung up.

The two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving are peaceable. I should’ve known better. No weird supernatural thing tries to attack the pack. Nobody kidnaps Adam. The cases are peaceful. The only thing currently wrong is a car of Mercy’s where the brakes don’t work and the clutch pops no matter what you do. She thinks it’s wiring. I think it’s black magic.

We’re debating the issue as she does her best with the turkey. It’s one of twelve that she’s made, because Thanksgiving is a pack affair. Well, more or less. The pack has about twenty odd people in it, and some will stop by in the next few days because they have their own families. Adam doesn’t take it personally. There’s about ten wolves here tonight, plus Mercy’s family of hodge podge people like Zee, Todd, and Stefan. We’re still debating the whole thing as we help carry all the food into the dinning room. Everybody is elbow to elbow, and I grab a seat next to Stefan. He smiles at me. He has a glass of blood that he brought.

We all cheer when Adam cuts the first turkey. After that, we all help with cutting up the turkeys, jostling to get some of the food. They made more than we needed, because the pack will come over tomorrow for the pirate game they all play, and Mercy said she wanted some to take to church. Maybe Adam has a point, because I don’t panic at how many wolves are around me like I would’ve a year ago.

The chatter dies while we all dig into the food. I hesitate over the meat. Warren and Mercy had taken me with them to the nearby farm where they got the chickens. Warren had killed them in front of me, while talking about wedding plans because Mercy was a wimp when it came to killing anything bigger than a rabbit. I’d watched them get plucked, stuffed, and put in the oven. I had their scent in my nose for more than eight hours. It takes a lot to make turkeys apparently, and I  _ knew _ that the meat on my plate was turkey.

I take a small slice of the meat. Ariana and Samuel had come, but they’re placed at the opposite end of the table, so I get by without any side remarks from the peanut gallery. I eat it slowly. It tastes delicious. I very carefully excuse myself, telling Stefan that I should wash up. I have a panic attack in Adam’s very nice bathroom. Adam’s eyes flash to my face, but he’s engaged in business talks about something or other.

There’s a polite knock at the door. “Just a minute,” I say, sucking all the fear scent away. I scrub my face and hands off. It’s Jesse leaning against the wall when I come out. It’s a sign of faith, I think, to send a defenseless human after a monster in a panic attack. I am a little startled that it was as bad as it was. I can eat fish after all.

“Dad sent me.”

“Oh yeah, thanks.” I go back and sit down on the table, and act like I hadn’t spent ten minutes throwing my guts up in Adam’s very nice, very clean bathroom. Nobody says shit to me about it, but the conversation is stilted. I finish as quickly as I can and leave, putting my plate in the sink. I thank Adam for the dinner with my eyes on the floor.

I drive slowly all the way back to my apartment, partly because of the car, but partly because I can’t stop crying. I hate crying. I hate throwing up. I’d rather be stabbed than have a two for one deal on my panic, thanks. As I make it home, I finally catch sight of the truck that had been tailing me. Adam is one paranoid son-of-a-bitch, I’ll give him that. I sit on the stoop and wait for Warren to get out.

“Boss doesn’t want you alone tonight,” he says. Warren stands a few feet back. I don’t know if he was Adam’s first or fifth choice of who to send after me, but I guess I should’ve expected somebody.

I think about arguing, but I’m miserable enough about having puked my guts out in the hearing of thirteen or so supernatural creatures. I don’t need them to hear the inevitable conversation between me, Warren, and Adam if I refuse to go with Warren. I lock my car, and get into Warren’s truck.

“Sorry you had to miss Thanksgiving,” I say.

He shakes his head. “Mercy sent me home with a batch of cookies. It wasn’t going to be a great affair either. Kyle has to work tonight and is spending the night at the office.” He sighs, wistful. “God, I love that man, but he works as hard as I do.” I’d met Kyle a time or two. I like him. He can get a pack of wolves to shut up and listen with barely a word. If he was a wolf, Adam might have a problem. I am happier that he won’t be home. Warren’s tough. If I really lose it, he’ll be all right. Kyle might not. Zack will be there, but he’s smart.

“Might burn down your house,” I joke, a little serious.

Warren’s hands flex on the steering wheel and then release. “If that’s what needs to happen, go right ahead. Kyle’s been fixing to remodel anyway. That would give him a great excuse. And if you singe me a little, I’ll have negotiating ground to keep some of the walls more boring.”

“Feels like all I do is panic,” I say, lulled to truth by the late hour, exhaustion, and how the night presses in on us.

“Until Adam, I was alone. Oh I’d get the ‘we don’t really mind you here, but here are the rules that you gotta obey’ or the ‘we have no problem with lesbians.’ It took me a while to feel comfortable around them. Until Zack, I didn’t think any of them apart from Adam would want to be around me.”

I knew what it was to be alone. “I never tried,” I tell him. “I-my first werewolf experience wasn’t great,” I edit. “After that, I spent a lot of time alone. Now all these people are worried over me, and I keep panicking, which just makes them worry more.”

“You talk to Anna about this?” he asks, naming Charles’ mate.

“No? I didn’t want to bring up bad memories. Mostly we gossip.”

“Hmm. Way I hear it, omegas can rile up dominants worse than submissives when they’re scared.” I knew that, I did, but I hadn’t put it in the context of the pack.

“Oh,” I say before my fool mouth can shut, “I thought we just made them hungry with our fear.” I smell the wave of anger, but my mouth won’t shut. “And you got angry because we smell like prey and you gotta fight not to-” my mouth finally shuts. I pin my eyes to the darkness out of the windshield, and ignore Warren breathing heavily next to me. I crank down a window.

Warren, utilizing what is clearly left of his control, keeps his hands very casual on the steering wheel as he drifts the truck onto the shoulder. He takes a few more minutes, breathing in and out. “Your pack,” he says, his voice husky. I know if I looked over, his eyes would be wolf yellow. “They’re dead, yes?” I nod, jerkily. “All right. All right.” He breathes in and out, moving air at great gusts. Without the window, we might have suffocated from his breathing. I wait, patient in my anxiety.

He pulls the truck back onto the road.

“Dominants want to protect,” he says. “I’m gonna give Adam a piece of my mind for not- dominants want to protect. They have to protect. They will go to any length to protect. The more willing they are to protect, the more dominant. It makes us happy to have people, to keep people safe. At the core, that’s all I want to do. Now, I’ll protect Kyle over Mercy because he’s my mate, but it’d be close. We don’t have to be control-freaks, needing our flock to follow strict rules. Adam has a series of compromises with Mercy, for example. The more dominant, the more willing they are to fight at a moment’s notice to keep everybody safe. Some, like Bran-” I flinch and he nods - “can mitigate that by chess games, and other power battles to keep the bloodlust at bay.”

“Submissives,” he continues “want a safe place. They desire to be protected. Less dominant wolves than Adam feel safe around him because they know that he will die protecting them. Omegas.” He takes a minute to think it through. “I’m not the best for this,” he says. “I reckon omegas have the drive to protect, to make everybody safe, without the need to be a control freak about it. You don’t have the urge to kill to protect. You don’t have the bloodlust that dominants have.”

“I got bloodlust,” I tell him. “I still like beating things to a pulp when I can.”

He nods. “But your wolf doesn’t. Your first instinct with conflict is avoid it or mitigate it.” I don’t know about that. I like hitting things for conflict resolution just fine, but he’s right. “More to the point, you don’t have to or need to obey Adam or Bran. Adam can give you an order, and it’ll just go over your head.” That I agree with.

“Even though I’m not pack right?”

He nods. “Even lone wolves have to obey Bran. Not that he can’t intimidate and manipulate Anna if he wants. But point of fact, none of us, would try to dye Adam’s left sock pink. Except Mercy.” Warren takes another deep breath and says very firmly, “no sane wolf considers another one food.”

I hesitate, not buying it. “Okay, but wolves do eat each other.”

Warren nods again. “You’re right. But that’s a dominance thing. It says ‘you are weaker than me.’” We both can smell my rising panic, but he plows on ahead. “It’s done after fights or to enemies. It’s a statement. No sane wolf would attack a wolf for the sole purpose of eating them.”

I still don’t buy it. Warren can huff along all he likes, like I should know these rules, but I don’t. Warren knows it, from the tilt of his head.

“All right, try this. You are not prey because omegas are something to be treasured. So, nobody is going to eat you.” I do my best to pretend that I’m satisfied with his answer. I should be, but I’m not worried about getting eaten. I nod and continue to stare outside of the windshield for another few minutes. It takes Warren until the driveaway to get it. “Ash-” but I happily exit the truck before it comes to a complete stop.

Zack’s home, and Warren isn’t going to start a serious conversation with Zack home. Zack was abused, had lived in a pack not governed by the Marrok’s rules in Europe. By the time I met him, Adam had worn away most of the obvious signs. He doesn’t like people arguing loudly and coming to blows. Kyle was as much his guard as Warren, and had led to the pack respecting Kyle a lot more.

Zack greets at the door. “Adam said you brought cookies?” he asks, hopeful. He was probably convinced to stay like I was: Mercy’s baking. I hand him the bowl of cookies. I can see that Warren is about to call Adam, and tell him the latest on my trauma. I don’t need it. Honest. I’m doing all right.

“I’m gonna go to bed, if that’s all right,” I say. I don’t think my stomach can handle more food.

“Warren will eat them all,” Zack tells me, his eyes flicking to Warren’s face. I try to straighten myself up, to look less weak. “Besides we got that good plant milk because Kyle likes going on about health.” Kyle only does it to tweak Warren’s tail.

“I-all right, fine. Let me-let me shift.” I escape to the bathroom to shift. I don’t want Warren to ask me anymore questions, or stick the phone up next to my ear to have Adam ask them instead. I give into him and my wolf who wants to make sure he’s okay. Zack needs a little TLC. I feel Warren leave the house, leave me in Zack’s care. In short order, he has us on the worn out couch, eating cookies, and drinking milk. I’m curled up tight against him, happy that he’s happy. I’m calm by the time Warren comes back in. Zack has that affect. I eye Warren.

He looks at me. “It’s all right, Ash. You don’t have to talk more tonight.” I flick my eyes to show that I wasn’t going to anyway, even if I wasn’t in fur. Warren grins a little. He sits down next to me on the couch, and turns his attention to stealing as many cookies as he can. By the time the tomfoolery is over, I think Zack beat us out. He plays to his strengths of looking sweet and then steals whatever we stole from the other. After a while, Warren leads me up to a spare bedroom. He looks down at me, and stoops. “You were right about some things and wrong about others,” he says, voice quiet. Zack’s still downstairs, cleaning up. “I hope you can wait long enough to believe me.” I nudge his foot with a paw. He grins. “But I expect you’re doing just fine.”

I do change back in the bedroom, once I know he’s gone. Warren had left me sweats and a tank top that I bet was Kyle’s by the “you wish you were this gay.” He’d also put my day clothes in the bathroom. I eye the bed. Not tonight. I grab the comforter and pillow, and decide to sleep on the floor. It’s clean, carpet. More than soft enough. It’s not like I’ll sleep much anyway.

I do, to my surprise. I wake to a phone call. Middle of the night. Never a good sign. I blearily check the caller ID. Unknown. I accept the call, sitting up, and rubbing at my eyes.

“He’s bad.” It’s not somebody I know. “Please. Bran’s bad.” They hang up. I pull at my mating bond to find-I don’t know what? Madness?-but Bran is AWOL. Gone. There’s nothing there.


	6. Balancing on Breaking Branches

I book it down the steps, trying to change my clothes at the same time. I have one boot swinging from my teeth, as I run into Warren. The good thing about the bad news, and this supercedes whatever fucked conversation Adam was going to attempt with me.

“Wha’-”

“The hubby’s in trouble,” I tell him, adopting a 50’s housewife air. “Only I can comfort him.” I’m worried. I’ve never felt the bond go dead. It’s been almost a year, and Bran has blocked me, but I could still feel him. My tone turns serious. “I should be back in a week.” I hesitate. “I know I wasn’t right last night, so thank you for helping and trying to explain.” I jerk on the other boot. “Thank Zack for me too, would-ya.”

“Ash-”

“I gotta go. I-I’ll call Mercy from the road, yeah?” I break into a bolt for my apartment. I get there in thirty minutes. I’ve never tried to pass at human, and it’s 4am. Nobody’s going to give two shits about me. I get to the apartment in record time, grab my emergency bag.

I take a deep breath, and remember that magical I am, I can’t portal where I haven’t been. Not without a map at least. I make a mental note to cuss out Bran when I find him. If I find him. Nope. When I find him. Okay. Okay. I eye Mercy’s car, which barely lasts around the cities.

I take a few minutes and consider my decision. The fastest route is about 8 hours, if I do it right. I shave four hours off by portaling to Spokane. I’d been there to sort out some nasty vampires a while back. I take a breather and call Charles.

He answers on the second ring. “How bad?” I ask.

“Bad.” Charles doesn’t ask to what I’m referring to. Not a good sign. “Where are you?”

“Spokane. Trying to figure out if I should rent a car or run the rest of the way.”

“We have business holdings there.” He gives me directions to the office, and explains to somebody in charge that I need a car. “Ash, he’s not talking. Da won’t let Anna in either.” I let him hear me gunning the engine, and I hang up the phone.

I get there in about three hours, good time for November. I did stop for lunch, not wanting to show up hungry. I shiver as I get out of the car. Aspen Creek isn’t a lot. There are four buildings not hidden in the trees, but the rest are pushed further back in the woods. I track Charles’ scent to where its strongest, and knock on the door. I don’t try to find Bran just yet. I need to get the lay of the ground.

He opens the door and gestures for me to come in. I stomp off the show. “Thank you for the car.” Charles gestures me further inside. “Bran?” I ask him.

“At his house, has been for the past three days.” Anna’s making coco. It’s bitter and dark. I burn my tongue on it. “Four days ago, a new wolf attacked a child. The child is still alive, but now Da has a choice like he had with Kara.” Kara was ten when she was changed. “The child is six.” I let out a hiss. “The child, Matt, is with Father in his house.” I don’t swear, but it’s a close thing.

I finish the coco. “Thank you,” I say.

Charles touches my shoulder as I turn to leave. “Da had to put another wolf down last week, Willy. He considered him a friend.” I hold Charles’ hand for a minute. I do not promise that it will be all right.

I track Bran’s scent to his home. The door’s not locked so I help myself. I set my bag lightly on the ground. I can smell a fire burning, so I follow that to the study. It’s different in person. I can see a computer monitor. There’s also a camp cot with a child on it in front of the fire. Matt. Bran’s sitting Indian style in front of the fire, watching it burn.

“You didn’t have to come,” he says.

“Kinda did.” I check the kid first. He has a fever and is in the death throws. He’s dying, probably got until twilight. Matt won’t live through the change. I almost breath a sigh of relief. No kid would survive the wolf. It doesn’t feel like relief. Instead of a quick, painful death, the kid will have a long one. At least he won’t live through the change and then have to be put down. It has to be better than false hope. I pull the blankets up, brush a hand over his hand. He wiggles closer. “He have family?”

Bran shakes his head. “The father tried to change last year. His wife was a wolf. She went mad with grief and attacked him.” He doesn’t look up at me. “The whole family, taken over by this madness.”

I sit down next to him. “Pretty pathetic of you to sit here when there’s a dying child to attend to,” I tell him, trying to make my tone as soft as I can. My words are harsh and he looks up at me.

“Always can count on you to yell at me,” he says, also keeping his voice soft, but there’s a bite to it. “What would you have me do?”

“Personally,” I say as if he hadn’t spoken. “I’m surprised that Asil called me up here when there’s nothing wrong.”

“I thought you might be able to  _ do something _ !” The last word is almost inaudible. I haven’t seen him this wound up since Leah.

I gaze at him sadly. “All things die.” I touch him on the shoulder. “I’ve never known you to turn away from somebody who needs you,” I tell him. Bran’s eyes flash. The bond is wide open now and I can feel his grief. It’s wider and deeper than the Columbia.

“I can’t do it,” he whispers. “I can’t, Ash. I had to-” he loses himself to the wolf for a moment. I give him what peace I can.

“You are stronger than you know,” I tell him.

It startles him enough that his human half takes over. “Christopher Robin?”

“Hmm. Out of the mouths of the babes.” I link my elbow around his. “You knew what this burden was when you took it.” I don’t have sympathy. That’d be for Anna or Mercy or Leah or somebody else in his pack. “Now, stop feeling sorry for yourself.” I get to my feet and pull Bran to his. “I’m gonna get Charles. Whole town’s gonna wanna say goodbye, and he’ll be good at keeping them in line.” Keeping them safe, is what I don’t say. Bran is a hair from losing control and taking them all with him. “Go help the kid, Bran.” I let him pull strength from me.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. He goes and picks Matt up in his arms, rocking the boy.

I shake my head, weary with grief and keeping Bran from killing folk. I go out onto the front porch. Charles is there. Charles raises his eyebrows at me. “He safe?”

“As much as he ever is.” We watch as Bran brings the child out of his house, and sets off for an old pole barn. Matt is wrapped up tight with blankets. “I figured,” I say, and have to stop for a minute because it is sad. It’s horribly, terribly sad. “I reckon this way everybody can say goodbye to him.” Anna starts making some phone calls. In a small town like this, when everybody knows everything about each other, it takes them ten minutes to start going to the barn.

Charles looks at me, “you coming?” he asks.

“I-I didn’t know him.”

“Da could use you.” I nod, thinking that I should’ve brought my guitar or something. I trail behind them. Charles has already started organizing people. Some of them have brought food, stuff suitable for people of all ages. Bran is in the center, holding Matt. I touch Anna, and she goes. With some quiet words, she trades places with Bran so nobody gets eaten.

I stick in the back, not needing another night of panic attacks. I lean against one of the poles. A dark man eyes me and wanders on over. I keep my eyes forward, but shift my weight enough that I could defend myself, if I had to. Anna has started singing gently, a child’s song. The rest of the town take it up. Bran is silent.

“Thank you for coming,” the man says. He leans against the pole nearest me. The rest of the town is a few feet away. “I’m Asil.” I recognize his voice from the phone call. I also recognize his name. I breath through another encroaching panic attack. Bran’s eyes catch mine but I shake my head. It’s nothing to worry about. I feel Asil flinch back.

“Thanks for calling me. You were right.” I ignore him, and join in the song Anna’s singing, making sure to keep my voice soft. We sing through the day, breaking for food, drink, and stories. Matt’s teachers talk about him. Everybody has a story, or at least, makes one up. Bran doesn’t speak, wordless in his grief. When I find the energy to be sad for him as well, I’ll give that its proper due that a bard is speechless in his grief. I also don’t speak, for I have nothing to say. All my control is spent between not running from an unknown wolf pack, and giving as much peace as I can spare to Bran.

Matt’s breathing worsens until he’s just huffing in and out air. I motion to Charles, and hand him off some herbs I’d brought. They’ll ease his passing as much as they can.

Matt dies just when the sun has fully set. A fresh wave of grief washes through the barn. I lock my knees so I don’t keel over. Twenty or so wolves howl, either in fur or human form. A shiver runs down my spine. I have to use my sleeve to wipe at my eyes. Slowly, slowly the barn empties. It takes an hour for the mourners to go. They’ll mourn again at the burial. But for all intents and purposes, this served as a living wake. I do go near the remaining members. Anna, Charles, and Bran. Asil hasn’t moved the entire day from my side.

Finally, I walk forward.

Charles is saying, “think we should bury him tomorrow. Best not to let it wait.” He’s not looking at his father. Bran is staring at Matt, idly rolling his knee around. He has his legs spread out in front of him, with his arms supporting behind his back. I can see his hands digging into the dirt.

“You’re right.” Bran’s voice is husky. “Can you-” he breathes - “I’ll take him to the clinic,” he correct. Bran gets up like he’s aged a hundred years in the past day. I think he has, not his fault wolves don’t show aging like they should. Bran collects the body from Anna.

As he passes me, his eyes catch mine. I read that he wants to be alone, and I know better than to ask questions. Instead, I tug Anna to her feet. “You got potatoes?” I ask Charles, out of nowhere.

He rolls with it. “I got some red ones.”

“Great. I know a potato stew that will knock your socks off.” I hand Anna off to Charles, and lead the way to Charles’ house, inviting myself over. But I hesitate, watching Bran walk to the clinic. Because the universe does its best to favor mourners, it starts to snow, drifting lazily down on us.

I don’t do well with grief. Mine or anyone else’s. George likes to joke that I learned to cook so I didn’t have to confront my emotions. He has a point. Within ten minutes, I have a pot bubbling away. Charles and Anna got put to work cutting potatoes as I make the special secrete (it’s garlic, lots of garlic) sauce. Mushrooms, garlic, and tamari all go in the pot. I chuck in some tomatoes as well. The potatoes that Charles and Anna chopped, cook up nicely.

“You want meat?” I ask Charles, but he’d read my mind and has a grill going. I breath through my mouth and ignore him. More vegan stew for me. By the time it’s ready, Bran is pacing up and down outside Charles’ house. I go and fetch him. “Food,” I tell him firmly. We don’t talk through dinner, but Charles plays some music on an old record player.

“You staying the night?” Anna asks as we clean up dinner. I freeze some of the stew for them, and borrow some tupperware. Bran is in the other room, talking softly with Charles. Even with good hearing, I can’t make out what they’re saying.

“Hmm? Yeah. Figured I’d stay the night and head back day after tomorrow.”

Anna hesitates, then says in the same soft voice that her husband is using, “Bran came close, I think, to killing Charles. He went to collect Matt from Bran, to take him to the clinic, and Bran lost it, or so I hear.” That’s why Charles hadn’t come with me to Bran’s; he couldn't disobey a direct order from his alpha.   
  


“Good that Asil called me then.” Anna wouldn’t have gone over either-not with Charles wounded. “How bad was it?”

“I-”

“I just threw him off the porch,” Bran says demure. He’s wary of my reaction though, standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Charles?” I ask.

The man shrugs. “I’m fine. Asil called you?”

“Yup.” I look at Bran. Anybody me might say he’s exhausted, but I could tell he was done in. “Thank you for having us over for dinner,” I tell the two. “But I think I’m gonna go to bed.” I hesitate, and then look at Charles, but I can’t think of anything to say. So, I nod, pick up the tupperware, link my arm with Bran’s and steer us both out of something bound to turn awkward and bitter.

We both hesitate on the threshold. “There’s spare bedrooms,” Bran starts in, ready to fall on his sword.

“I don’t want to sleep alone. Do you?” I ask. He shakes his head. “No sex. Nothing sexual,” I clarify.

“Okay.” Bran snorts at my look. “I just want to sleep.” I stick the food in the fridge, and follow him upstairs to his bedroom. “Sweatpants okay?” he asks. I nod, and change in the bathroom. By the time I come back, after showering. He’s changed into fur, and is curled up on the bed.

“Always trying to make it easier for me, huh.” I tuck myself into bed, and curl around him. “I’m sorry for being-” I search for the right word- “unkind earlier.” Bran shuts his eyes and presses closer to me. I nod to myself. Soon, we both sleep.

The funeral is a new kind of horrible. It’s not a funeral precisely. Much of the grieving took place last night. I stand closer to Charles and Anna. Bran’s at the front, tired and blank faced before the town’s grief. They blame him, and I think he’s fine being their scape goat because he blames himself. I hum along with the hymes, and dutifully recite the words that the minister asks us to. It takes werewolves to dig the grave, breaking into the solid ground. The clinic had cremated his body, and they lower Matt down into the ground.

I hate death. I’d give Bran words he needed to hear, but I’m as bad as him at wanting to prevent life’s natural course. All things die, and that is how it should be. But it hurts because we have souls. I don’t really believe in God, or at least, not the Christian one. I do my best to suspend my belief, just for today.

I make tea back at Bran’s home. I can hear him lighting the fire. We sit before the flames and drink the bitter, bitter tea that I’d made. We don’t try to talk.

I do step out before dinner to talk to Adam. He’d been calling my phone off and on. Eventually, I’d texted him last night that I was fine (which he knew because I’d texted him when I got to Aspen) and that I’d call him today. I shut it off after that. I turn it back on, and dial his number from memory. I try to not keep contacts in my phone.

“I’m okay,” I say. I think for a long minute. Adam stays silent. I know Bran, down to the bones. If I leave now, or tomorrow, he’d sit in that old house, troubled by ghosts. He might talk to Eric. Might. And he’d spend Christmas alone, because he hurt Charles, and Anna is forgiving up to somebody hurting her mate. Not that Charles couldn't defend himself. “I’m gonna stay till the 26th. I’ll be home before New Year’s at the latest. There are a couple of presents in the back of Mercy’s car.”

“Okay.” He considers it for a long moment. “You and I are going to talk after you get back.” I can tell Adam thought through this. He could have not given me warning, not trusted me to not run. I don’t run. I’m much more of the remember the alamo than the run away type.

I decide that there will be enough time for that later. Stress about how I make sure everybody in Aspen doesn’t lose it now. “Sure.” It’s not agreement.

“All right,” he says briskly. “Call me if you have any problems.”

“Hmm. Bye.” I wait for his “bye” before ending the call.

I heat up the stew from yesterday. Bran is still silent. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to, I remind myself. We eat. I guide him to the bedroom, and herd him into the shower. We spend the night in his bed, not really sleeping, dozing some. I shift to fur in the morning, and decide to go bother others.

I paw at Charles’ door. He looks me. It’s like 6am, his face says, why the fuck am I on his front step. I do the classic dog pose, bending down, inviting him to come and run. He shuts the door. I whine and paw at it. I sit down, and then lay down, pressing my nose up to the door. Before, I can enact my plan to smear snot on his windows, Charles returns with Anna.

They’re both in fur, and take off running. I give chase. We bolt around the town, picking up some other wolves as we go. Anna and Charles are nice enough to keep themselves between the pack and me. The snow which was thick and unbroken is now covered in wolf tracks, and random displays of play fighting. Bran joins eventually. I dart up, tug on his tail, and take off at a dash, darting under cars. I look back to see if he’s given chase, only to have to break suddenly because he’d managed to get in front and is laying in wait.

After that, it’s a free for all. The newer wolves have been warned to be careful, and go assist the humans with coffee and refreshments. Some of the older, and less wise, human kids have gotten involved. I see one pelting Charles with snowballs, while Anna tackles her mate to the ground. Kara is nipping and leaping around Asil, while the older wolf bites at her with a laziness that is entirely faked. I dash around, chasing Bran, more than he chases me.

I have a minute where I tackle Charles. We both stare at each other, for a brief second.  _ You would be fun to fight, _ I think at him, and he sneers at me. We both leap after Bran instead. I take down my mate, grabbing him around his neck. Anna tackles me just as I’m about snap at him. I roll in the snow and spring back up.

Hours later, we go back to Bran’s house. He’s still a little bit broke. I heard him talking on the phone early that morning to Eric. Bran’s better than he was though, and makes his infamous mouse pancakes. I wolf-pun intended- down. Bran touches my shoulder in thanks as he leaves Anna’s home. I go back to coating my remaining pancake in syrup.

“You were right to come,” Anna says.

“Was I? I am less sure. I could have easily inspired a panic in your pack.” I almost had the night I came. I sigh. “You know,” I say to Charles. “I was never trying to protect you. I damn well know you can do that yourself.”

“Oh?”

“Before, when Bran decided to bring you into whatever we’re calling our thing. I’m sorry that he tried to use you to manipulate me.” Charles and I haven’t spoken about it in the six months I’d spent in Tri-Cities.

“He meant it- the apology.” He sounds startled, when he says that. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard him apologize for anything.”

“Hmm. Let me know if you need help glitter bombing his office.” Anna does a spite take at that. “Oh, your mate didn’t tell you?” I grin. “Mercy planted a bunch of them, but the last one was Charles. She doesn’t know the reason.”

“You tell her?” he asks.

“Nope.” Charles thought of Mercy as a sister, though she hadn’t realized it for years. ‘Emotionally stunted’ is an understatement for Charles, but he loves her dearly. “Clearly, you can defend yourself.” If he had liked Leah, maybe it would’ve been different. Maybe then, he would’ve pushed back on Bran. But Charles’ hate was well known to the pack, and Bran. If I’d been Leah, I might’ve tried harder to make nice, but then she’d had her hands full with her mate.

“It was one time,” he murmurs. The tips of his ears are red. I grin at him, showing my teeth. Anna gives way to laughing, and tugging at her mate. I leave before it descends to more.

I stay through Christmas. I leave on the 27th of December. It’d been over a month. By then I’d made peace with Asil. I never managed to sleep another night in Bran’s bedroom. Instead, I camped out on the sofa. If he knew me less, he would’ve asked if I wanted to use a guestroom.

I’m happy that I went, but I’m happier to leave. The mate bond still feels like a snare that I got my foot in. Bran’s not happy about it, but he saw me off with a smile and a loose hug. We’d talked about it beforehand. He knew I couldn't stay. I was too broke, and I wouldn’t even if I weren’t. Anna drives me to Libby so I can catch a train to Tri-Cities. I’d left the car in Charles’ car, and had decided to take a longer time back. Maybe by now, Adam had forgotten that he wanted to talk with me.

I had the feeling that she wanted to talk to me about something. It took her thirty minutes, until we were out of the town to say anything. “Why do you not mate him?” she asks. “Or at least join a proper pack.”

“I like you,” I tell her. “You’re good people, but it is none of your business.”

“It is if he breaks again and you’re not here.” Anna has kept her nose out of it. After I hexed Samuel so his shoes always came undone, and Charles sneezed every thirty seconds for a week, people had stopped asking questions. I don’t really want to hex Anna, in part because Charles would take that as an invitation to retaliate.

“Fine. We talked about it, a lot.” There’s a snap in my voice. “It ain’t-” I choke back my anger. “I can’t predict the future. Maybe one day, I could. But I’m not willing to love somebody like Bran right now. I’m not. What he did to Leah, Mercy? He breaks people to keep his wolves safe. I can respect that. I can. I can see how the group outweighs the one. But that’s not for me.”

“So it’s not just your trauma.”

“Nope. I’m working through that.” I kick my feet up on the dash, deciding that I can irritate Charles. “We’ve talked about it. He knows it. It hasn’t helped that he believes his own press a lot. Bran broke Leah, but I expect she broke him right back.”

Anna startles at that. “You think she was abusive?”

“Nah. But Bran can be cruel, and Leah was cruel to begin with. She didn’t know how to get her way without making it a fight.”

“You like picking fights.”

“I’d rather confront problems head on than let them boil over,” I correct. “Often it looks like the same thing. Besides, I try to not pick a fight that I can’t win.” She takes her attention off the road to look at me. “I mean sure the troll was a risk, but that’s what makes it fun. Bran and I work because he gets all worried about something, and I pick at him until he does something.”

“And you trust him. That’s why you haven’t broken the bond yet.”

“I hadn’t broken the bond yet because I don’t think I want everybody on the continent to die, but his control is getting better every day. Soon, I will break the bond.”

Her eyes are back on the road, but I can read the worry in her. “You’d do that? Break the bond.”

“That’s the plan. We’re not good for each other.” It’s starting to sound like a lie. We are not good for each other. Maybe it’s how when you say a word enough it becomes meaningless. “We’re good friends though.”

“Well, I think you’re good for him. No, really, I do. You make him listen. It’s not just that you’re an omega, though that’s part of it. You’re not scared of him. You don’t think he’d hurt you. Even I’m a little scared of him. I’ve met his wolf. Charles tell you?” I shake my head no. “There was a witch-” wasn’t there always- “and she tried to trap him. The beast broke the trap. I sung him to sleep, but it was close. You’ve met his wolf and aren’t afraid.”

“You can’t be afraid of everything,” I say lightly.

I’m not afraid of the wolf, because I’m too busy being scared of Bran the man. The wolf will kill me, rip me to little bits. But there’s a method to the madness, and we respect each other. I kept his human alive, when he would’ve died from grief. I think Leah’s death would’ve been a lot simpler if Bran hadn’t loved her, or even if he’d known that he loved her. Maybe Eric takes donations.

Anna turns and gives me a look. I huff, and understand how she can force Charles in line. “You gotta prioritize your fears,” I tell her. “Some things will eat you today, and some things will kill you tomorrow. If Bran’s wolf ever kills me, I’ll be dead.” I shrug. “Not a big thing to worry over. Worrying about it just means I’d suffer twice. Besides, the wolf and I have an understanding which gives Bran no small amount of frustration.”

Bran is used to everybody liking him when he works at it. He’s not outwardly confident, but he weaponizes how nondescript he is and how much people don’t pay attention to him until it’s too late. The wolf and I are more similar than Bran and me. We’re both used to being the monsters. If I had claws and walked on four paws all the time, Bran would reconsider this whole thing. More than that though, we’re both cunning but have no love of manipulation, not like Bran does. Even more than that, we’re both used to being tied to Bran, against all reason.

“You and his wolf have an understanding?” she asks.

“Yeah.” Mostly, that Bran’s a moron and we’re comrades in arms. I don’t say anything else though. I do my best to not bring people into our thing, especially my kinda daughter-in-law. I make a mental note to kick Adam if he tries to insert himself. Maybe I’ll ask Kyle for advice. I could do that, I think.

“Thank you for coming when he needed you.”

“I got honor,” I say, my voice sharp. “I wasn’t-I’m not going to abandon him.” I like Bran. I just don’t love him. And before you start, I’m not friendzoning him. There’s a bunch of antiquated shit tied to that concept: that a woman can’t prefer to be friends with a man. I tune the radio to a good station, and lean back in the seat. For all intents and purposes, I spent the rest of the car ride snoozing.

It’s late by the time I get to my flat. I honor what I told Adam and text him that I got home all right. The old worry wort.

I flop on my bed. Maybe. Maybe if we were different. Maybe if I met him before everybody else got to me first. Maybe if he’d met me before he broke himself trying to keep everybody safe. I snort. It’s too many maybe’s. I fall asleep, glad to be home.


	7. And I cut off my nose just to spite my face

Adam gives me two weeks before inviting me over to dinner. I eye the message from Mercy’s shop. I’d needed a break from the rush of cases I’d been working since I’d gotten back. Most of them only took a day, and were depressing. More people cheat over the holidays than you want to know. They then go and buy their partner an expensive gift, freaking the partner out and sending the partner to the nearest detective: one Ash Cassidy. I look at the text for a long moment. If I go, I give him power over me. If I don’t, he’ll send Jesse or Ben or somebody else I’d have a hard time turning down.

“Adam cooking dinner later?” I call to Mercy, trying to get a gauge on it all. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I doubt it.

“Yup. Some one pot wonder indian thing. You coming?” Her tone is casual, and she doesn’t duck out from the car. I think Adam should start paying me a security fee, because I’m sure that’s my purpose here.

“Hmm. Yup.” 

I rub my hands on my jeans. This scares me more than being locked in a room with Bran’s wolf. I wouldn’t break a sweat over that. I like Adam. Until him, I’d never considered running alongside a pack. Wolves aren’t meant to be alone. He’d let me stay here, in his territory, even knowing I was dangerous. He’d helped me. I wasn’t sure who owed who at this point, but I could give him this. Besides, I got the feeling that he could give my stubbornness a run for its money. Besides, it was just dinner; maybe it was nothing.

“You okay, Ash?” Mercy asks.

“Huh? Yep. Right as rain. Anybody else coming tonight?” I can’t help the wariness in my voice from coming out.

“Yeah. I think he invited Warren, Kyle, and Zack.” I turn my attention back to Mercy’s mess of paperwork. A month without me meant that a lot of it had piled up, and as I kept reminding her, tax season is right around the corner. “Ash?” I heard that over a year ago the IRS had audited her.

“Yeah?”

“It’ll be all right.” She’s sure, I can tell. But that doesn’t mean much. Mercy once planted glitter bombs in Bran’s office after all. ‘All right’ is relative to her.

I used to think myself brave. Dinner cured me of that. I’m happy that the others didn’t count on me for conversation, though Kyle gave it a shot. He talked law cases with me, which I’ve learning more about. Law cases didn’t have a lot of meaning to supernatural folk until recently. So, I hadn’t bothered to learn them, and have been doing some catching up. Kyle, although a divorse lawyer, likes to know as much as he can about the law. When dinner starts to draw to a close, my nerves come back.

I’m damn lucky that I can smell my fear and start hiding the scent of it, careful so that my natural scent is still there. I don’t need them to smell how much of a coward I am. I’m sure my body language gives it away enough. Mercy and the rest abandon me to Adam by setting us the task of doing the dishes. Adam keeps his eyes down, washing the dishes. I dry them. I’d noticed they had used older dishes this go around.

“I’ve thought about how to do this,” he says. His voice is measure, steady. It steadies me at least. He laughs a little at himself. “Mercy thinks I strategize too much.”

“I buy it, Cap’n Larson.” I hadn’t joined in the pirate game, but it was only a matter of time.

“Just stop me if there’s a better way to-that’s wrong. You’re worried you can’t stop me.”

“Well, if you’re gonna tell me what I think before I think it. Actually, can I trade with you? I need something to do with my hands.” I start washing and he starts drying. There’s a lot of dishes that pile up in this house. The whole sink’s loaded with them. I bet Adam has a chore chart-and yep, there it is to the left on the wall. I wash a plate, collecting my thoughts. I can hear Warren and the others lurking by the stairs. Adam would’ve made sure that nobody else was coming over tonight.

“I don’t remember a lot of my childhood. I was raised to be an experiment. The witches wanted to know what would happen if they crossed fae and werewolf blood. After some failures-” I can still see the jars of parts- “they got me. I didn’t know who birthed me. For a hundred years though, I spent being a witch’s plaything.” I force my voice into something more flat, trying to match Adam’s leveled tone. “They’d managed to kidnap a wolf pack. I was used to enforce the pack. The witches liked to study us, so we were kept in a large enclosure and left to ourselves, sometimes for weeks or even years. I-the pack alpha-I never did learn his name- used me to attack other wolves. I would get close to somebody because I didn’t know how not to, and later, I would get ordered to kill them. The witches would approve the alpha’s choice. The alpha was my father. They’d wanted me to be powerful, but I was submissive, according to him.”

I take a deep breath, and realize I’d cracked a plate. I put the pieces aside on a towel. I turn back to washing more. I’m ignoring Adam at this point.

“I loved my packmates, as any wolf does. You can’t _not_ , and I was used to kill them for a witch’s pleasure. I couldn't resist, bound up as I was in magic. They used shackles on us to control our magic and pack bonds. Anyway, the meat thing. They often forced us to eat each other. They’d cut off a wolf’s limb, do terrible things with it, and then would force me to eat it. I had to kill my packmates and then eat them.”

“When we broke the witch’s control, we weren’t sane. From my reckoning, they’d had us for about a hundred years. I found out later that we were in Kyrgyzstan of all places. I was used as an enforcer, among other things.” Adam gets the gist from my tone. “I got out, and started wandering. I learned some shit, started picking fights outside my weight class.” I grin sharply. “I haven’t joined a pack though. Also, I’m not gonna try Tinder no matter what Kyle says.”

“Kyle recommended Tinder?” Mercy asks. She’d come in at some point, needing to ground Adam. I keep washing dishes.

“At least it wasn’t Okay Cupid,” Adam offers. He blinks at Mercy. “I wasn’t a saint,” he says. “I tried dating. It didn’t work, but I tried it.”

I try to picture it. Adam taking some poor woman to a fancy restaurant. It doesn’t compute. “Sure you did,” Warren mutters. I flinch, forgetting that he’d been there. “It’s all right, darling,” he drawls to me. I shut off the tap and rest my hands on the sink rim. Adam leans up against the sink next to me. He waits until I meet his eyes to say anything. There’s sorrow there.

“I am sorry that happened to you. I am _glad_ and _grateful_ that you survived.” I hear Mercy start to rummage around, and the smell of milk heating up makes me look over. Hot chocolate, the good bitter and spicy kind. We sit down, her, Adam, and I at the kitchen island. I warm my hands on the mug. “In a bad pack, you’re right. Fights happen often. Wolves in the wild do eat what they kill, even other wolves, because they don’t often fight within packs. We get that instinct. However, werewolves do not each each other. It’s an act of disdain. Sane wolves would never eat someone they called a friend.”

“Warren told me that.”

“Furthermore-” Sometimes I think Adam should’ve been a school teacher- “omegas are treasured. You have the drive to make a pack feel good without any of the killing instinct, the need to fight. You calm our wolves down. Only a moon crazy wolf would attack you, would force you to kill them or anybody else. It’d be like forcing Warren to be straight, to _love_ being straight. It goes against his nature.”

“Not that women aren’t pretty,” Warren calls. “Just not my type, even before Kyle became my only type.”

“Suck up,” I hear Kyle mutter. Adam had the right of it, asking them here, but keeping them out of the kitchen. It gave me somewhere to run, if I had to.

“It’d be _wrong_ to force him into that. Dominants, good ones, want everybody around them to be happy, and they’re ready to dictate everything and anything to make it happen,” Mercy explains. “Adam wants to wrap me up in bubble wrap and never let me leave the house.”

“But that would go against Mercy, and she’d bat her eyes at me, bash me over the head, and take off in the new SUV,” Adam continues. “So I don’t dare.” His tone turns serious. “It’d be _wrong_ to take that will away from her. It’d go against everything I love about her. So we compromise. Submissives, like Zack, need affection, need to know that they will be safe. They like feeling like they’re part of something. It’s why they’re a joy to protect because they’ll never kill a dominant when their back is turned.”

“But dominants will,” I say.

Adam nods. “They will. Dominants die in stupid fights all the time. It happens less when a pack is well-organized and has a good alpha. It happens even less when they share a common goal-”

“Like protecting a whole city,” Zack chimes in.

“But it can happen. Warren’s had challenges. I’ve had ‘em too. Mercy, too, in her own way. But usually, if the wolf is sane, it just wants a place to belong, to know who’s in charge and who it should protect.”

“Charles likes to say that it’s rarely the wolf that’s starting dominance fights. Honey is dominant, somewhere around the top three of the pack, but women traditionally are lower,” Mercy adds. “Several wolves had a problem with me, because I don’t play by their rules. Their human half didn’t like it, but their wolf half knew I was dominant over them.”

I like it. It helpfully confirms my androphobia.

Warren says in a very soft voice, “we all gotta ignore that I’m more dominant than Darryl.”

“Because you’re gay,” Kyle says it like it’s new information to him.

“Because I’m gay, and the pack can’t have a gay second.” There’s a weariness in his tone. I’d known that Darryl was fast approaching the need to have his own pack, and it hadn’t caused tension. Yet.

I sip at the hot chocolate, and decide to change the topic. “Did I tell you I stayed for the food?” I ask Mercy. She nods. “Add your hot chocolate to it.”

“Bran?” It’s Adam who asks it. I shake my head; that’s not the question he should ask.

“Always comes back to him doesn’t it, huh? It wasn’t him that got me into this mess. You know you’re famous even in England?” I ask Adam. “So, when your kid got took, it made headlines, and then you called me. How’d you even get my number? Not a lot of people had it back then.”

“Uncle Mike gave it to us,” Mercy says. “He called you a fixer.”

“Hmm. Close enough. I like being a detective more, makes me sound like I know James Bond. Before Hauptman-” he raises an eyebrow - “Adam” I correct, “contacted me I’d stayed away from werewolves. I kept a low profile, paid my taxes, and once in a while killed things before they became a problem. It’s not like England’s real organized. But this was a _kid_.”

Children are important to fae and werewolves alike. At this point, I think it’s instinct. Both races have a hard time making kids. The fae get jealous over others’, often humans’, and werewolves get extremely protective.

Jesse had been taken by a rogue pack in upper France, that wanted to use her as a bargaining chip with Hauptman. The problem was that they fucked up thinking Adam would let them live. The greater problem was that Adam couldn't find them. They had a powerful witch to keep them hidden. That’s why I got called in.

“I wasn’t gonna let a kid get caught up in all this, not if I could help it,” I continue.

I remember Jesse, scared, huddled in a crate. She tried to cold cock me at least twice before I explained that I was with Hauptman, and I was there to get her out. I’d gotten her back to the states, safe and sound. I’d left the men for Adam. Hauptman and I had kept well away from each other during the whole fiasco. I was more scared then, and angerier for it.

“It was a good thing you were there,” Mercy says. There’s a growl in her voice. She had been left guarding the city, and keeping everybody else in line. It hadn’t been easy for anybody.

“I-I’ve never been one to leave well enough alone. So, when Charles called me, I had to go. I knew the witch that held Bran. I was the best chance there was. They got the drop on me.” I’d found out later that none of the wolves had gone to the salt flats because Charles was wise enough to know that if Bran could be taken, anybody could be taken. “The witch did the mating bond, forcibly bound us together so neither of us can break it. I don’t-I don’t think Bran would if he could. I’m easy to live with, since I’m not around. This doesn’t leave this house, right?” I ask Adam.

“It doesn’t leave,” he makes it an order for the wolves. Mercy doesn’t have to obey, but she loves Bran.

“We’re gonna go home anyway,” Kyle calls. “It’s late and I got to get up early.” We wait for them to leave.

“Bran thinks his wolf is out of control. I disagree. I think the human half is at war with the wolf, and Bran likes fighting too much to give in. You gotta give into your instincts with the wolf, just a bit, just to coexist, right?” Adam nods. “He uses the mating bond to spread the beast out. It’s not a full mating bond. Technically-” I smile a little - “I’m single and could use Tinder, if I wanted some nice girl or boy to end up dead. Bran hates his wolf, and uses it as a weapon. He hates himself too.” It feels wrong to give away secretes, but Adam’s safe. He’s also the only wolf in America who’s not under the Marrok, even as a lone wolf. They can tell that it’s Bran hating himself that gets to me.

“Maybe it’s good I didn’t send you to Bran,” Mercy ponders. She shakes her head at me. “ _Adam_ ,” she says, ignoring her mate’s glare, “thinks he’s a monster. We got a wake up call a while ago.”

“ _Adam_ isn’t dumb enough to have a half bond with a traumatized woman,” Adam says dryly. “ _Adam_ wouldn’t let his half mate wander off into the belly of a beast.”

I’d deny the traumatized thing, but I don’t feel like trying to lie. “I think that’s it,” I say.

“So why haven’t you taken him to mate?”

“I’m gonna make a powerpoint. You, Mercy, Bran, Samuel, Charles, Anna, Ariana, and me are all gonna go through this line by line so there’s mutual understanding.” Adam waits out my sarcasm, well I’m a little serious. “If you put everybody’s trauma aside, all of it, I can not love a man who so thoroughly hates himself as Bran. I will not also love a man who breaks people, people he loves, to protect something that can damn well protect itself.”

Adam, for once, doesn’t chide me for swearing. I expect that he likes having his clothes mono-color again. Mercy smirks because Adam clearly thought about saying something, and decided that he likes breathing. It’s all right, I’ll get him for something or other later on.

“Bran’s made it his only purpose in life to protect his people. He would die for them-”

“He would send his sons to die. He would send Mercy to die,” I argue. Adam shuts his mouth, because he can smell the truth of my words.

“Bran is zealot,” Mercy explains, patting her mate’s knee. “Who’s only cause is nothing more or less than the survival of all werewolves. Still, he was willing to sacrifice that for me. He went to Europe, knowing the risk if he was found out, to help keep Adam in control. Bran does put himself at risk. Bran did not let me die, even after he cut our pack off.”

“Fine,” I gruffly admit. I decide then and there that if Mercy ever learned of Charles’ suspicions about Bran’s parental thoughts-or lack thereof- about Mercy, it wouldn’t be from me. That would be unnecessarily cruel, and I do my best to not be cruel to friends.

“Charles, Samuel, we all have doubts,” she continues. “But for the longest time, Bran kept us safe. He made werewolves in America safe. I’ve fought monsters. Dying to keep people safe is acceptable. _You_ take that risk. You’re mad that Bran couldn't do the same because he’s worried about everybody else. What you’re forgetting is that he will fight and die to keep all of his people safe, including you. You ever read John Locke?” I shake my head no. “Consent of the governed. Adam is alpha because the pack trusts him to do what is best for the group, to provide for them. He gives them control, makes them safe, and in return, they swear to follow his orders.”

“Consent of the governed? It’s a dictatorship.” I’d been learning something about politics in the last few years, and I damn well know that the US doesn’t stand up to its promises of the whole thing, but the wolves are a step below that. They’re still operating like it’s 1812, conscripting folks into the regime.

“Werewolves are not wolves. They need orders and rules to stay in control,” Mercy says. “How do you keep control?”

I let my eyes rest on my knees, not wanting to answer that. “Ash?” Adam leans closer. “You have it on you?” he asks. I pull out the cuff from my pocket. I hand it over to Adam. He studies it, and holds it up to smell. He hands it off to Mercy. She won’t touch it. “Can I see your left ankle without the glamour?” I hesitate. “Please?” I roll up my jeans, and plop my leg on the table. I show the unglamourized version. My foot has been broken a number of times, and set wrong. The toes are slightly crumbled, although I’ve done my best at setting them. My ankle is scared. Heavily. 

I look human under the glamour. My skin’s about the same. Eye color and hair are all the same.

“Right,” Adam says after a beat. “This is a long term problem.”

“Am I joining your pack?” I ask him, generally curious.

“Friends don’t let friends have crooked bones,” he informs me, clearly paraphrasing his daughter. I put my leg back under the table. “Long term problem. Samuel know? No,” he says, interrupting my face. “Course you didn’t tell him.” He snorts at me. “Right-”

“I mean, he knows some of it. Yeah? So you let him do a full exam, and have a plan on how to reset your bones?”

“Maybe it’s just my foot.” He gives me a look. “Right. Fine. But you get that you’re asking me to do a thing that’s terrifying, and probably triggering, that will also confirm that dominant men hurt?”

“Okay,” Adam says. I gulp at my now cold hot coffee. “Okay. I hear you. I don’t agree that it needs to be traumatizing or affirming of your fears.” There’s exhaustion in every line of his body. “I’m gonna call Sam, so we can talk this over tonight. Might as well,” he adds, “I’d rather not give you more time to panic and take off to Bangladesh.”

“I would never. I’d go to Ireland.”

He ignores me and calls Sam. “Hi, you up for a late night conference call?” he asks. Adam keeps talking as he goes and gets his laptop from the office. I focus on calming down. Mercy, the love of my life, starts making more hot chocolate. At least, Adam hadn’t invited Sam over. My blood pressure couldn't take that.

“Right,” Adam says, pulling up Sam’s face on his laptop. “You mind clearing your schedule next week?” he asks.

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Ash’s bones were broken and set wrong.”

“Okay. That shouldn’t take too long to put right. How many?” Adam looks to me to answer Sam’s question.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Most of my right side.”

“Right.”

“‘Cause you set the ones down my left side right.” I bite my lip to keep from giving more away.

“Hmm. Did I get all of them?” he asks. His face doesn’t give anything away, but now he knows it wasn’t a recent injury. It’s a heck of a lot harder to date injuries on supernatural folks.

“I-I think.”

“Right,” he says, trudging on, “Okay, about day after tomorrow. You free any time in the morning?”

“Yup. Whole schedule is clear then.” Note the sarcasm. I sigh. “I can push things around. 8am good?” Maybe if it was before I was caffeinated I wouldn’t worry about it.

“Sure. ER should be slow then. I’ll clear it with my boss.” I had the feeling that Sam’s bosses would bend over backwards. He was one of the few doctors who knew how to handle supernatural cases. Every day, I’m grateful that I know how to patch myself up (and I’m aware the current situation disputes that), and that I don’t know enough to work as a doc.

“Most of it is my feet,” I tell him, after a look from Adam.

“All right.”

“I don’t- I should have better control this go around,” I add. Gods willing, I don’t break anybody else’s nose. I’d bought Sam some food in apology after that, and to thank him for the medical care.

“Hmm.”

“Also, I can pay. I got money for it.” That is aimed at Adam. I am not his pack, and I don’t need him stepping in all.

“Good,” Samuel says, “X-rays can be expensive. Is that all?” he asks Adam.

“Yup. I’m also free at 8am on Thursday.” I grind my teeth, but nod. Maybe I can work out a hex where his tongue turns purple or something. Adam eyes me. “You prefer somebody else?” he asks, tone mild. I shake my head. Adam’s tough. If I gotta deal with showing them my scars, they can deal too.

“Okay, that’s settled then,” Sam says. He hangs up the zoom call.

“I’m not sure that was worth it.”

“I don’t know,” Adam says. He sips at his hot chocolate. “Good to get these things sorted out before you run off to Montana again.”

“I-you know I’m more than my trauma, right?” I ask, staring him down. I don’t have to cower before him, which is not quite how Charles put it. “I run a damn-” I see his barely perceptible reaction- “business. I killed a troll. A big one. I broke Bran out of a witch’s thrall, and killed two of the suckers on my own. I am more than some scared little girl who doesn’t like doctors or men. I survived and thrived for thirty some years on my own.”

“I-we made this territory a safe place. It is in my benefit to make sure that the local detective and fixer is happy. Besides that, I owe you a debt.” I start shaking my head. “No, I do. You got Jesse back, even though you had no reason to, even though you did not trust me or like me. I also like you. You deserve to feel safe and not alone.” I have to blink away some tears at that, like a total sap. “All right,” he says. “Time for bed.”

Right. It’s gotta be sometime after midnight at this point. I stand up. I don’t think I said half as much as Adam wanted me to, but I feel drained. I weave a bit, and straighten(ha) up. “Guess I’ll be getting ho-”

“I can drive you back or you can stay the night.” Mercy doesn’t get up, doesn’t look up at me. Adam hasn’t stood up. It calms me down some.

“I-I’ll stay. Can I have the guest one next to yours?” They nod. I put my mug in the sink. “I’ll clean up more tomorrow,” I say, and escape upstairs before Adam can start asking more questions.

* * *

(Third POV)

“What do you think?” Adam asks. He doesn’t look up, still working out his anger. Ash is right, he got there too late, after most of the damage was already done. He wants to call Bran up and yell at the other male.

Mercy snorts. “I think we had an easier time with Ben and Adien, combined.” She starts doing the dishes, needing to work her own anger out. Mercy likes Ash, respects her for carving her out spot out in a male dominated world, and for making Bran sit up and take notice. Ash is several steps up from Leah, in her book.

“Look what I found, can I keep it?” he mocks. Mercy brought home a lot of strays in her time. “She told Warren that she thought dominants wanted to kill and eat her, and got mad at her for making them feel that way with her fear.”

“Not like you could tell her different when she’s experienced it. You figure out how to keep from re-traumatizing her tomorrow?”

“Make sure she has a choice, and can refuse medical care. I’m not- I am not going to hold her down if I can help it.”

“Damn,” Adam says with feeling. “Warren was easier than this. Give him a task and he’s on it. I don’t know how to help her with Sam.”

“I was there with the troll-”

“You weren’t. I forget how, but I convinced you to be elsewhere.”

Mercy’s eyes narrow. “You sent me on a shopping trip with Aurielle as one of your misguided attempts to get us to work our issues out.” Adam winces. “How bad is bad?”

“We called Bran because she wouldn’t stop shaking, and having panic attacks every thirty seconds. Ash would get through one, and have another one immediately after.” Adam hesitates, but he knows his mate. She’s not one to talk and she knows panic attacks. “She pissed herself.”

Mercy looks up at that. She’d gotten a blow by blow account of the troll from Charles. Ash doesn’t scare easy. Mercy had fought a troll. It had taken the pack to help bring it down. Ash killed a troll easily, just got trampled a little.

“I waited to talk to her about it, because well, you don’t approach that trauma head on if you can help it. Honestly, I don’t know how she can sleep in our house.” He shrugs. “But then I don’t understand how you married me so.”

“I got lucky. I was good thirty some years, paid my taxes, took strays in, went to church. And you are mine.” It’s as possessive as she can get. Mercy fights Adam’s monster every day, and it is her honor to do so.

“You think God sent me as a reward?” he asks it with humor. Adam likes to say he doesn’t believe in God, but Mercy doesn’t think you can be that angry at something you don’t believe in. 

“Either that or Coyote.” She thinks for a second. “Oh geez, what if it was Coyote? What if this has all been a great game for him?” They take a moment to realize how scary that particular thought is, that everything from Bran to Adam was some of Coyote’s work. It would explain Charles planting a glitter bomb in the Marrok’s office.

Adam decides that it’s questions like those that drive people to funny farms. “You think I can talk her into joining the pack?”

“You’d think she’d do it?” Mercy asks, grateful for the topic change.

“Wolves need a pack. I was going to give her that therapist’s number.”

“You think about letting her teach people self-defense?” Adam blinks at that. “Have her use Warren as a dummy-he’d like that- and teach Jesse and Adien a thing or two. Get Zack in on it too.”

“I like it. I’ll talk to them in the morning.” Adam looks at his mate, drying the last of the dishes. “Nudge.” They race up the stairs, and stop short. Ash is curled up outside their door on four paws. She doesn’t move, but she gathers her feet under her, ready to run. When they don’t say anything, her tail wags, and she closes her eyes again. Adam stoops down, sitting on his haunches next to her. He holds out a hand for her to sniff. She sneezes on him. “That’s how it’s gonna be, huh? All right. Get some sleep, Ash.” They go to bed, leaving Ash outside the door, even though Mercy mutters about a pack cuddle.


	8. Family that I chose, now that I see your brother as my brother

( **Ash's POV** )

I go for a long run that day. I don’t know what to do with what Adam told me. I’ve spent a good thirty years being on my own. The idea of letting anybody protect me wrinkles. Until I got involved in pack business, I’d done well for myself. I run for hours, trying to lose myself, and forget about tomorrow.

Warren’s waiting for me at the park entrance. I hadn’t bothered taking a car that morning. I’d woken up outside Adam’s room, and decided to run to the park instead. Warren brought clothes at least. He turns his back while I change. I happily magic on some clothes. Take that. Magic. “Did I know you could do that?” he asks.

“Hmm.”

“Right. Boss was worried that you disappeared before breakfast.”

“That seems like an Adam problem and not a me problem,” I tell him. I get that Warren had to tell Adam. I understand that in the abstract. I would’ve done the same without feeling any guilt, but I didn’t need a goddamn interrogation last night.

Warren, most likely knowing all that, doesn’t say anything about it. “Want me to drive you to your place?” I don’t want to go back to my place and be by myself, but I don’t want to be with people. I don’t want to think. He reads the hesitance on my face. “I brought lunch, if you want any.” We sit on the hood of his truck and eat tuna sandwiches. Warren drives me to his place afterwards. I happily fade into the background. I sleep in the kitchen in fur, not wanting to move.

Zack wakes me up by using the coffee machine. I don’t have the monopoly on nightmares. It’s about six am. I go and shift back, dressing in worn out jeans, my ever-teleporting boots, and a worn in sweatshirt that I think belongs to Zack. It’s about 6am. I make and drink some tea that I’ve left over from spending so many nights at Warren and Kyle’s. “You want me to give you a lift to Adam’s?” Zack asks.

“Uh, sure, thanks.” So, I guess everybody knows, huh. Fuck me. I’m half tempted to text Bran to see if he knows that Samuel is going to give me a panic attack today. On second thought, I don’t need Bran to come down to Tri-Cities because I lose it

“Hey, I’m going to get some dental work,” I text him. “Should be fine, might panic lol.” Knowing him, he won’t check it for a long time. Adam, not surprisingly is up at 6am. Zack had dropped me off and headed for work. Warren had gotten him a job at the stop-and-rob that he liked. Adam was trying to get him to work at the company and handle people who were terrified. Zack would be good at that.

“Here, eat some toast.” Adam hands me two slices of toast, puts another one in his mouth, and hustles me back out the door. I go with some humor. He snatches a magazine up before he locks the door shut. “Right. I know it’s 7, but there’s going to be paperwork because Sam and hospitals love paperwork.” So, I get in the passenger seat of Adam’s SUV (I think it’s his second this year), and Adam drives us to the hospital. I’d borrowed one of Kyle’s thermoses, so I had tea as well. Thank fuck.

Adam’s right. There’s paperwork. I fill in what I know and make random guesses about what I don’t know. I hesitate on the “species.” I put “werewolf” down, deciding its not a lie. The only one who needs to know is Sam, technically. It’s around the twentieth question or so that I think about moving to Alaska, or the Rockies. Adam doesn’t say anything as I wildly guess my way through the paperwork.

After thirty minutes, Sam comes and gets us. “Here.” He thrusts a gown at me. “Change into that. First, we’re going to take a bunch of scans, and we’ll talk before I do anything. All right. So, relax.” He waits outside for me to change. Adam doesn’t, but his attention is solely fixed on the magazine. I look over his shoulder. It’s  _ Mental Floss _ , of all things. I hesitate, but I drop the glamour. Neither Sam or Adam say shit, although I see a flurry of experiences cross Sam’s face, and Adam’s shoulders tighten.

Sam’s as good as his word. He takes so many damn pictures of my bones. “You startin’ a blog?” I ask him, after the fifteen one.

“Yup.” I blink. Samuel helps me off the table and back into the wheelchair that had sparked a five minute argument. He shuffles the pictures into a file while I watch, and puts it in his armpit. “Come on, let’s go back to the exam room.” He wheels me back, racing along the hallway to try to get me to ease up a bit. I’m grinning before we get to the room.

Adam’s still there, reading the magazine, or at least he’s pretending. “Well?” he asks, laying it down on his lap.

Samuel throws the pictures up on the wall. “So, it’s a little bad.” My bones look like I was crushed under a building years and years ago. Every single bone has been broken at least once. “Still fixable. No worries.” Adam looks over the x-rays, but I happily do not. I was there the first time the bones were broke. I watch his face instead. “I’m going to get a colleague of mine.”

“What?” I ask, looking at him.

“It’s not a big deal. I’m good with ortho, but I’d rather have somebody else as well.”

“No.”

Samuel sits down on a stool, putting his head lower than mine. “All right. But if I do it poorly, you’ll have to come back.”

“Look man, maybe we should call this whole thing off, yeah? I’ve been all right for the past thirty or so years. There’s no need-”

“You’re in pain,” Samuel says, casting an eye at Adam. He doesn’t say anything. He would come down on Sam’s side, but I get the impression that he’ll only speak up if I actually leave or pick a physical fight with Sam. Maybe Mercy knocked some sense in him. “I would like you to not be in pain.”

“And they would just look?”

“Yeah. Her name’s Tani.”

“Is that supposed to be helpful?” I ask. “Like it’s supposed to be reassuring?”

“Yeah.”

“Sam, I really don’t want people to see me naked. Boundary.”

“All right,” he says gamely. “How about we start with your feet. Most of the damage seems to be your limbs anyway. Your feet are what I’m most worried about setting, and what I want to get right.”

“Okay. Fine.” Sam leaves for a few minutes, tracking down Tani. She’s beautiful, Asian, and very, very tall.

“Hi, I’m Tani.” She sits down on the stool. “Nice to meet you. Samuel said that he wanted my opinion on resetting your feet?”

“Yeah. Thanks,” I say, off put by how stunning she is.

“No problem. Okay if I touch?” I nod. She bends some of my toes around. “Okay. Most of these look pretty simple.” Tani rolls around and pulls out some splints. “I know these aren’t the greatest colors, but it’s what we have. Some people like to put pretty duct tape on them though.” As she’s talking, she gets out a hammer and a nail like thing, although it’s more blunt. “Okay,” she says. “What’s going to happen, is I’m going to rebreak your bones, and splint them.” Tani pulls some gloves on. “Samuel said you’re a werewolf and pain medication doesn’t work?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Sam can you?” Samuel places his hands around my ankle.

“Wait you’re going to do it now?” I ask, starting to freak out a little. Adam has stopped pretending to read. He gets up and sits in back of me, supporting me so I can watch what they’re going to do.

“Yes.” Tani holds my eyes. “Try to relax as much as you can. 3-2-1.” She slams that hammer home and I hear the crack. It doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. “Okay. Now, I’m going to splint it.” She does. That hurt more. “Easy, easy. You did good.” I’m sweating by the time she finishes the toes of my left foot. I flinch when she goes for the right. “All right, take a breather. Nice and easy. You did good.”

Adam has starts rubbing my shoulder. “Good?” he asks me.

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m good. Go-go on.”

“All right. Same thing.” I’m flinching by the time she finishes. “Okay. We’re going to take a break.” I don’t relax until she rolls away to go and look at my X-rays. Sam releases my ankle. I grip Adam’s arm when he tries to move away.

“All right, honey,” he says, not breaking my grip.

“Not Honey,” I murmur. I’m shaking a little, and I try to steady myself. I look at Tani. “What’s next?”

“I’d like to do your hands.” I don’t say anything at that. The panic gets to be too much.

“After that, I’m fairly sure I can do the rest,” Samuel tries. He’s watching my face. I’m shaking again. I force my muscles to relax. This would mean that I would be helpfulness for 24 hours. I would need to stay with somebody, probably Adam, judging by how tense he is from the whole affair.

“All right.” I look at Tani. “Why not? What I’m getting from this is that the damn hospital johnny wasn’t necessary.” I get moved and repositioned so that I’m sitting in a wheelchair with my hands on the table. I keep my eyes fixed on the way, so I don’t have to look at the hammer breaking my bones. Tani is damn good at what she does. Another thirty minutes, and my hands are all splinted up.

“You want to do the rest today or wait?” Samuel asks, as Tani steps back.

“I’m already in the damn chair. Might as well break my right leg.” Sam hesitates, but accepts my decision. I knew big bones hurt worse when they’re broken. I relearn it anyway. I lose track of time.

“Okay,” Sam murmurs. I’m shocky now. “Okay, let’s get you out of here.” Adam, however, is the one who takes over control of the wheelchair.

“Guess the johnny was necessary,” I say, exhausted. Adam puts my clothes on my lap, and wraps a blanket around me. I don’t bother with the glamour, too tired to bother. Adam does drive me back to his house. Samuel comes back with us, having cleared it with his boss.

“Go to sleep,” Adam tells me, and for once, I do as he says.

I wake in the guest room, on the bed for once. Adam isn’t there, but Sam is, reading at some medical textbook. I get up slowly. Everything aches. My leg has a thick splint on it. I stare at my hands. They look like something out of a 90s movie. My feet are worse.

“Thanks,” I tell Samuel. He looks up at that. “I know it can’t have been easy. Thanks.”

“No problem. I think you should take two days to heal up, and then we can do your other bones.”

Right. Because Samuel and Tani hadn’t gotten all of it. Adam leaves me alone, and Samuel does too. Luckily, my hands heal enough that I don’t need help going to the bathroom. Thank all the gods. Two days after the initial procedure, Samuel rebreaks the rest of the badly set breaks. It’s not exactly a relaxing process, but it is less nerve racking than the first go around.

Adam waits a week before springing his next attack. I’d waited a day or so around his house, before fleeing back to my apartment. So, he has to lower himself by going to my apartment. I’ve gotten good at hearing his truck, so I come out on the stoop to meet him. “What do you want?” I ask, not trying to be aggressive, but it comes out anyway.

“I have decided that Jesse and some wolves could benefit from defense lessons.” It’s a good line. “You are used to fighting outside your weight class.”

“Why not Mercy?”

“I need somebody who won’t hurt her but isn’t going to take it easy.” It’s the truth, but I have the feeling that Adam can accomplish several things at once while shouting that he’s only doing the one. “I’ll pay you,” he adds. “Thirty bucks an hour.”

“Okay.” I’d spent thirty years making damn sure that I could kill whatever came after me up to, and possibly including, Charles Cornick. I was more than qualified to make sure that Jesse could kill a punk if he tried to touch her no-no square.

“That’s it?” he asks. “She’s been doing karate since she was five.”

“Hmm. Sure. I guess I get my pick of minions?”

“Yeah. I want you to teach Zack as well. And Aiden.” He’s startled I gave in so fast, and is trying to give me an out. I decide that I should not try to figure out what mindgames Adam is playing here. I like what little remaining sanity I have-thanks.

“All right. Starting tomorrow night? I got work in the morning.”

Between my casework, Mercy’s garage, and now this, I was working three jobs. I’d finally been able to start saving. The case I’d been working, even with the healing collar bone, was a woman who’d been assaulted but the police hadn’t believed her. I’d given Kyle’s number to her, and spent time running down leads.

“Trouble?” Adam asks.

I shake my head. “I’m confident the boyfriend did it. I’ll pay him a visit tomorrow.” I don’t believe that rapists reform, but if I started playing judge, jury, and executioner, I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror. But if he did it again . . . well, I’ve never liked mirrors anyway. “I’ll be around at 5?”

“Sounds good.” Adam leaves. I sit on the porch, thinking for a long time.

I call Bran. “About this non-mating mating bond . . . how bad would it be if I joined Adam’s pack.”

“He’s been courting you.” I appreciate Bran’s age sometimes (not like that), because he doesn’t bother with phone etiquette.

“In a way, yeah. Not romantically.”

“This about your ‘dental work?’” I can hear the sarcasm in his voice.

“Hmm. Kinda. Yeah.”

“I guess technically it won’t matter because nobody except family knows your my mate.” He hesitates. “I won’t say I like it, though. I want you to be happy.”

“I’m not trying to be cruel here,” I say, my voice wooden. I know I’m being cruel. “But here, I have a place. I can do casework and be independent. And Adam-” Bran tries to keep his growl to himself. Tries. “-Yes, Adam is trying to make this a safe place for me to be independent. His firm contracts me when they need background on supernatural targets. I like it here,” I tell him. “This would be a chance for me to be with a pack and not- . . . to be safe.”

“I understand.” He does too. I can feel his understanding lapping away in a corner of my mind. It hurts because he does understand, and he’s not angry. The worst is that he’s not angry or hurt, because Bran knows I’ve been hurt before. He will not hold this against me, even though he should.

I still don’t love him. Bran deserves somebody who does, and he deserves to not be in love with me. I’ve never been in love (as such), but I can feel that he loves me. I let my head fall back and hit the brick of my building.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and mean it.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s okay, Ash. It’s not your problem, as Eric has been reminding me. You set a boundary, and you should and are able to do that.”

“I need to send Eric some flowers.”

“You know him?”

“Hmm. Good man. Not who I’d go to therapy for-”

“You’ve been?” Bran’s not surprised.

“Yeah. I found a dragon a few years back. They make good counselors.” It hadn’t helped. The pain was still too fresh, but it had given me peace.

“They’re interesting people. I should go.” We hang up. I go back in and lay on my bed, trying to sleep.

Around 4am, I give up. I sit beside my bed, legs crossed and try to meditate. I relax my posture and breath slowly.

I think long and hard about Bran, about all the things that scare me.

  1. Bran is dominant.
  2. Bran is male.
  3. I am attracted him despite this.



There are other things that will probably always make me nervous, like that he is manipulative to get his way. That Bran will do whatever he has to do to protect his. But, I am attracted to him. I’ve never denied it, not even to Bran. It’s ⅓ of why I find him terrifying. And because Bran is who he is, he knows all that. I’m not in love with him, because I never gave him to the chance to try. All of it was too raw. Leah dying. The witch binding us in blood and death. I’d been tied to men like that before, and I could not give him an inch for fear of him taking a mile.

I’m still mulling it over at the shop, and when I drive to Adam’s house. I get out, and head to his garage. Adam’s there. Warren, Zack, Aiden, and Jesse are there too.

“I don’t know fancy karate,” I say, standing before them. “Most of what I learned, I learned from fighting. The best defense is running away.” Adam nods to me, and leaves. We run the edge of Adam’s property. The werewolves and I aren’t breathing very hard, but the others are. Aiden is the worst, so I stop when I hear his breath start to choke him up.

“That was the warm up?” Aiden asks, forgetting that I got wolf-sharp hearing.

I ignore him. I lead them through a stretching routine before their muscles can tighten. “We’re going to pair up.” I put Aiden and Jesse together since they’re about the same weight. “Zack, you mind?” I ask, not letting anything come out in my voice. He pairs up with Warren and me. “Right. First thing, don’t hit somebody in the face unless you got wolf strong bones. You’ll break your hand. Also, if you’re short, you wanna aim lower.” I make a motion at Warren and he helpfully punches me in the throat, pulling it so his knuckles just brush. I pull out some practice pads that Adam had left me. They all practice how to throw a jab and then a cross. “Twist your hips,” I order.

We cover punches, nerve sites, and some common throws. I do get satisfaction watching Jesse flip Warren. Warren is a very good dummy, and goes where they throw him. It’s a good first class. I’m careful with Zack, and make sure to not move in any terrifying ways toward him when he flips me. I like fighting. I like teaching it too. It’s weird to be in charge of somebody else, to be in a position where I can scare somebody and then protect them instead. It’s easy too.

Adam follows me to my car after the lesson. He hands me the cash. “Same time tomorrow?” he asks.

“Yeah. Sure.” I drive back home. I’d gotten a crap shoot vehicle, and had been fixing it up in my spare time. Iron doesn’t trouble me the way it should. Silver does though.

So, now I have a third job. I teach the class at least five times a week, often after I finish at the garage. I work cases in the morning. Before long, I’m too exhausted for nightmares and all. Well, until Adam convinces me to see a therapist, and suddenly my nights are very free. I’m exhausted enough that Zack manages to throw me one evening. I lay there for a second, then I leap up, yelling “congratulations!” at him.

It doesn’t all go swimmingly. They all have triggers. Jesse has a panic attack when Zack has her in a clench. It turns out her abductors had pinned her. Aiden has one when Warren leaps up from the ground in wolf form. I have them every other day, but I’ve managed to keep from having them in front of the kids. Adam usually brings me a thermos after the sessions that were bad (I bet he has the whole place wired with cameras) along with the money.

But two weeks after Zack threw me, a month and a half after my conversation with Bran, I join the Columbia Basin Pack. It’s a ceremony on the full moon, just before we’ll be driven to change. Sam’s there as well. Adam and I had talked about it before, and we both decided to do without the eating of Adam’s flesh bit. It’s joyous and a little scary feeling all the pack around me, but no discontentment. They respected me for taking care of trolls and Jesse. Besides, I didn’t really care. Most of them think I’m just a wolf. I’m good if they carry on thinking that.

I don’t know what I’m going to do about Bran, not yet, but I’ve won my independence. Truly. And forever. I howl and the pack joins me.


	9. And I feel alright, and we'll feel alright

So. Bran.

I waited a month, until it was February to tell him I wanted to try it. This launched the longest dating I’ve ever done, and I was only a week in.

“You’re not moving to Montana?” Bran asks. I’m juggling the phone while trying to complete paperwork.

“Nope. I like my pack, and I kinda have family here now.” The pack had warmed up to me once they realized that I grew up when baking was a national sport. I wasn’t anywhere near Mercy’s level with chocolate, but pie I had down pat. It had put me at the top of the murder list for the pirate games, in case I was ready to bake a pie (I wasn’t). 

“So, long distance,” he says.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I expect I’ll settle down sometime this century, but not right now. I  _ like  _ working cases and traveling, Bran. If I lived in Aspen with you, I’d be expected to go to fancy dinners with the fae, and pay attention to politics.” Not that I didn’t do that anyway.

“Not that you don’t do that anyway.”

“Look, one day maybe, but I like  _ working _ , not gossiping about how scary Charles is or whether you’re gonna kill Asil this week or next.”

“What about if you inherent Charles’ job? He’s been itching to settle down more with Anna, and take a break. You can go and be a fixer for a bit. Most of what he does with the wolves is investigate and-”

“You’re forgetting that most of my clients are human, fae, or vampire for a reason. I’m not gonna walk into hornets nests.”

“What if I send Asil with you?” I like Asil, despite myself. Maybe I’ve gotten good at surrounding myself with scary things and then acting like I was never scared to begin with. “Ash?”

“Hang on. Moment of realization here.”

I was never scared of arguing with Charles, because Charles the man isn’t scary. Same with Asil, because he’s a drama queen and likes it that way. Heck, Warren too. I never can leave well enough alone, can I? Not even with the things I should be running screaming from.

“Ash?” his tone is still patient but it has an edge.

“Yeah. Sorry. Maybe on Asil. Hey, this isn’t like when the heroine fights a romance through the whole story and then just gives in because the man kept pressuring her right?”

“Nope. Pretty sure you told me to go fuck myself more than once.”

“Hmm. Your son was interested in our sex life-”

“-or lack thereof,” he mutters. We’d have conversations of what he could and could not joke about, and he was still in the green zone.

“And I was clarifying things to him,” I said with great dignity. Sam had muttered something about birth control while I was talking to Bran. Hence, this conversation.

“Right. So to clarify, you have decided to date me, without any of the usual courting nonsense?”

“I’m just saying, when you’re in town, we get dinner. Go see a movie. And see where it goes from there.”

“Like a test drive?” He’s humoring me. I’m all right with that. Bran’s good at humoring because he hates lying.

“Precisely.”

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to secretly date a man with his very pesky and nosey son in town, not to mention a whole host of people who are  _ human lie detectors _ , but it is astonishing that we make it a month into April.

“You and Da are dating.” It comes out in a spectacular fashion. _ I’ll think this is funny later _ , I promise myself.  _ I will _ , I vow. I do not blush. Bran is trying desperately to untangle his shirt and get it down to cover his chest. It’s currently doing its best to strangle him.  _ Very funny _ , I clarify. I let my chin thrust up, and stare down Samuel.  _ He _ is not turning beet red.

“Knock much?” I ask, my tone mild. Bran is embarrassed enough for the both of us, though that has more to do with being found out than what we were doing. Wolves, by and large, aren’t prude. I suspect if half of his intent wasn’t to try to cover me up, he’d be all growly and  _ male _ that he got the woman.

“I heard some strange sounds and the door was open,” he says mildly, watching Bran finally wrestle the shirt into submission. “So how long has this been going on?” He asks it like we’re both sixteen year olds he caught necking. I decide to have a little fun.

I get up, because I am fully clothed. “Late enough that I missed my period.” I make the lie stick with body language. I snort when both men stare at me, and roll my eyes. “Couple of weeks, Sam. Why? You interested in this?” I wave a hand at my body. Bran doesn’t quite growl, but he does get up at that. Samuel ducks his head, but I can see the smile tugging around his mouth.

“Charles know yet?” he asks.

“Nope. But there’s only so many times I can tell him that Adam wants advice,” Bran says. He sits on the edge of the couch, bumping up against me. I relax a bit.

We haven’t done anything except make out. Ironically, this was the first time Bran got his shirt off without me having a panic attack. Some of my frustration with Samuel is beyond ruining the mood.

“What did you want anyway?” I ask Sam.

“Oh. I was on my way back from the hospital and thought I’d see if you wanted to come to dinner with Ariana and me. Unless you want to get back to?” I shake my head. “I’ll have to ask her, da,” he adds. Ariana and I get along all right, but Bran is scary in his own right. I know it saddens Bran, because he is tickled pink that Sam found someone after all that time.

“I’m down, if she’s okay with Bran.”

Sam gets the okay from Ariana. Bran gives me a look that says,  _ we could’ve made out more _ , but leaves it alone. He knows that I was seconds away from one of the ever fun panic attacks. So, we do end up getting food at a great Indian place. Meat’s still an issue so I get their vegetarian curry. Adam and my therapist have tried working with me on it. I can do fish a lot better than I had in the past, but I think it’ll always be a trigger. Bran has argued that I could come and hunt moose. See if that helps.

One of the fae gets a little uppity halfway through dinner. We watch as he smashes in a car outside the restaurant. I eye Bran. “Get Ari safe,” I tell Sam. “We got this. And call Adam.”

“I was supposed to be keeping a low profile,” Bran says mournful. He’d been in talks with the fae and witches about bringing Adam back into the fold. But he also jumps over what’s left of the restaurant’s door. I hand him a spare sword. He gives it a twirl. “Bag of holding?” he asks.

“Of course.” In the past year, or couple of years, Tri-cities started to resemble a Renaissance Fair. Mercy, and several of the pack, carried swords now. I usually had one belted on, and carry a second in my purse on the same belt.

We eye the fae, still smashing things. I go to it. “What troubles you?” I call up. It’s a good eighteen feet. At least he, and it’s definitely a he, is dressed. Bran thinks about shifting, but decides that his mouth might be better. Werewolves are less threatening on two feet.

“They destroyed my home!” He roars back at me.

“All right. I regret that your home was destroyed,” I try. The fae roars back, and goes for a small kid huddled under a car. Ariana darts forward, and snatches the kid up. I don’t know why I thought Sam would convince her to leave. Ariana is one of the bravest people I know.

“You will die,” the fae roars at me.

“ETA on Adam?” I ask Sam, who’d come to stand at my right, far enough away that I could still swing the sword.

“He said ten minutes.”

“Motherfucker,” I murmur. “Gobshiter.” Ben has been teaching me new words. I look at Samuel. “Ari’s getting people clear?” I haven’t been able to watch because all my attention is on the fae. Sam nods; I catch it out of the corner of my eye. “Okay.”

“Good sir,” Bran calls up, “we will happily investigate what led to your home being destroyed and-”

“It was the humans!” the fae roars. “They burned it to the ground!” The fae picks up a lamp post.

Bran looks at me. “We’re fucked,” he says. The fae are not content with human justice, and many still believe that an attack from one human means an attack from all.

“Yup. We tried.” I look at Sam. “You’re second line,” I tell him. The civilians still haven’t all gotten clear. I don’t have it in me to ask Bran to stay back, even though he’s risking more. I have a flashback to the Charles argument, and grin at the irony, but we both know what is right.

I start forward, with Bran on my left and half a step behind. I have a sudden flash to  _ Night of Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian  _ with the cowboy and centurion, and nearly start laughing. Bran sends a question across the bond, but I shake my head. We move as one, fighting to hit tendons on the fae’s ankle. I don’t want to kill the fae. It’s not its fault that humans are terrible, but I also don’t want people to die. 

We’re not winning exactly, but after five minutes, we’re not dead. I hear the police arrive, and ignore it. Sam will keep them back. That’s when the fae starts spitting fire down on us. I think it was because we lopped off six toes between us; the swords are wicked sharp. We get good at dodging, but my arms collect burns and Bran’s leg gets it as well. I hear the hum of Adam’s vehicle pull up. The fae abruptly stops fighting at that, and bolts. It takes the river in a single bound, because it’s narrow here. I lock my knees so I don’t fall. I watch as Adam’s wolves chase after it, along with Tad and Zee. Bran braces himself by using my shoulder, so I don’t join them in the hunt. Sam doesn’t either, talking with the police officers and trying to keep his furry butt in the closet.

“Cawsom hi tan y tân, cariad.”  _ We had it until the fire, love _ . I keep my eyes down, and let Bran get a hold on his wolf. They were more in balance. Bran’s wolf is old enough to control himself, if he wanted to. If he wanted to.

I wrap my arm around his, and say, “better for you not to be here when the police get over their fear.”

He leans into me for a second more, and then easily lopes away towards the river, probably to offer his help to Adam. I look after him. That burn was bad enough to need treatment, but he hasn’t died in a thousand years so I decide to not worry too much. I take a second and cast a light hex to fry any electronics in a five mile radius, so that nobody would have Bran’s face on file. I hear some police start to swear. I look at Mercy, but she seems to have it well in hand so I run to the river’s bank, and begin to swim across. My bones are light in the glamour, and I can swim decently well. I make it across just in time to see Adam leap ten feet in the air off of Darryl’s back and rip the fae’s throat out.

“Damn it,” I murmur. “I wanted to do that.” The wolves circle their dying prey. Bran had shifted, pulling magic from me that I gave willingly. He bounds up to me, wagging his tail as if to say  _ that was a good hunt _ . I agree. I drop my eyes from Adam’s. He gets closer to Bran, but doesn’t bow his head or drop his eyes from Bran’s.

Bran gives Adam a deliberate eye roll, and looks at me so he doesn’t have to drop his eyes or force Adam to challenge him. He’s picked up habits from me too. And yes, I’ve heard about the Matt Smith Affair.

“Well? Can we go home now?” I ask. I do pull out my perfectly working cellphone, and call Mercy. “Hey, they killed it dead. I’m gonna call Charles and see what he can tell me.”

“Sounds good. The police found enough folks that they’re letting us go.”

“Swell. The first responders got a bit burned.” I eye the burns on Bran’s leg. They haven’t healed yet, which is good. “I think we’re going back to Pack Central?” I ask her and Adam. Adam nods. “Adam says yes.”

“Hm. Clean up?”

As she asked, Tad had begun sinking the body back into the earth. “We’re in the clear.”

“Great.” I watch the helicopter come close to us. Oh, to be a news reporter in Tri-cities. “I brought the van and can take most of them back.” 

The van I had found on Craigslist and I was working on was going to be a camper. I’d worked construction back in the 90s, and wasn’t doing too badly with it. I’d gotten it because I was tired of fae clients asking me out into the middle of national parks, and then not having a good way to keep dry. Tents are one thing, a solid roof is another.

Bran hops into the back of the van and gives me a Look. “Buddy, I know where you live. You got nothing.” Bran’s house was very upscale compared to my van with a bed and sink, but he hasn’t had to deal with fae and not being able to cook dinner at the same time. He snorts, but he hops in the back to change. Some of the other wolves pile in. Adam hesitates. “It’s fine,” I tell him. Bran’s just mad that you killed the bad guy, and he was superfluous.” Adam gets in, and shuts the door behind him with a paw. I pull out.

“No, I’m mad that my leg got burned,” Bran says, shucking on pants. I keep my eyes fixed on the road.

“Gonna be worse when Sam scrubs the burns off,” I tell him, waiting patiently for the police vehicles to move out of the way. I hear more wolves shifting in the back. Bran gets into the copilot seat. I put a hand on his knee to help him brace himself. There are far too many wolves in this small a vehicle and Bran pokes his head out the window to help.

“So this a thing?” Adam asks, sitting in the bench seat behind us. The only conversion I’d done so far was the bed and water system.

“Yeah, I’ve been converting it for like a month. You knew about it,” I say, steering the van through traffic. I can feel him work to let my sarcasm go. Just because he’s my Alpha, doesn’t mean I have to do shit. “Pretty sure you helped with the water tanks last week,” I add, and watch his jugular start pulsating in the review mirror.

“Ash.”

“Right. I was at the restaurant with Bran, Samuel, and Ariana. The fae started trashing shit-things- and we went and helped out.” I can see Bran smiling out the window. “Nothing too much, Adam. I bet we coulda killed him if he hadn’t bolted like a coward across the river.”

“You know, I could give you money for hotels,” Bran says, about to start a long term fight with me.

“Nope.”

I like the van. I love my van. It means I don’t have to spend the nights in weird fae territory and nearly get murdered. “I hope you never take a job out in the middle of nowhere and have a fae offer you a home for the night,” I say, my voice tart. “Just be glad it has a high top and not a pop top.”

“I don’t know what those words mean,” he tells me honestly. I’d bet anything that Bran has a manual about the van I bought somewhere on his laptop, probably researched all the safety specs too.

“Be grateful.”

“I am grateful.” Bran puts a hand on mine. I go back to concentrating on the traffic. I can literally feel Adam making a mental note to interrogate me later. Jokes on you, bud, I got a date later, and no fae can stop me now.

Samuel beats us back by five minutes. I love the van, but she ain’t winning any races. I pull up in the drive way. We all hop out. I stretch. My arm hurts and I’ll be bruised all over. Bran doesn’t limp as we walk to the house, but he’s the Marrok. Adam takes himself elsewhere, jogging up to the kitchen.

“Hey doc, you got a minute?” I call. Samuel looks up and takes in the burns fresh on me and Bran.

I stand at the stairs down to the basement, and can’t. Bran lightly picks my hand up. “Hey,” he murmurs. I breath out. After that, the whole thing goes fine. I just got burned on my hands and arms, mostly from the sword. Bran had his leg. All in all, it only took Samuel thirty minutes to scrub the scabs off. I didn’t even have a panic attack.

It’s great.

I eye Adam because I’d left Bran to get his leg done in peace. We’re up in the kitchen. “So?” I ask him. “You gonna give me a lecture?”

“About what? Having sex-” He stops at my face. “Come on. Outside.” I follow him out, still walking a little tenderly. Samuel didn’t believe in pussy footing around. We walk about a hundred yards away from the house. “You’re not having sex?” he hisses at me.

“I don’t think you’re the one to have this-”

“Who else? Who else knows you and your issues, and isn’t family to Bran?”

“You’re his son-in-law.”

“I’m the furthest you’re going to get.” He has a point, and we both know it.

Until now, I would’ve considered myself very liberal for a wolf. Until now, I would’ve said that the gender of who I’m having a sex talk with didn’t matter. Until now.

“Look, I promise it’s going okay, and we’re taking it slow.”

“You could always ask Warren,” he says. Warren, to my knowledge, is a goldstar gay man. It’d be the blind leading the blind.

“I could always ask Jesse.” Adam stops, dead in his tracks. “Sex is a natural part of life,” I tell him sweetly.

“Some days, I wonder the wisdom of letting you into my pack.” Adam is doing his absolute best to ignore that one day, if not already, his daughter will have sex.

“Please, you begged me.” We walk a bit more. “What if-what if it doesn’t feel good?” I ask, choosing my words carefully.

Adam doesn’t break something. “It might not be, the first time. It certainly didn’t for me. I lost it under some bleachers in the rain. But it shouldn’t hurt. It shouldn’t hurt.” I can hear his teeth creak. “If it does, I’ll have a word with Bran. It feels wonderful when it’s right, and you can bring your partner with you.”  _ Wolves are not prude _ , I remind myself. I’m scarlet though. “Communication is key. If something doesn’t feel right, you should feel comfortable to tell him. And vice versa. Bran would never want you to do something you’re not comfortable about for his sake.” The last sentence is very nearly a threat.

“Right. Makes sense.”

“Now, as far as sex tips go-” He’s joking, but I cut him off anyway.

“Nope. Absolutely not. I’ll ask Jesse.” I could see him physically resisting the urge to yell at me. “I know the basics,” I say, because Adam is worried. Worry is what he does best.

“Okay. You tell Charles yet?”

“Going to. I’ll call him after you go back to the house. He’ll wanna be smug in private. Hey, thank you.”

“No problem.” Adam goes back inside, whistling a little to himself. I guess a happy Marrok means a happy life.

I keep my word and call Charles. Charles doesn’t do smug. He comes close though. “So, you and my Da, huh?” he asks, like he hasn’t been pushing our buttons about it for the past year.

“Yup,” I say, popping the ‘p.’ “I’m not sure where it’s going, but you deserve to know.”

“Samuel found out, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve known,” he says.

“Hmm.”

“Da’s old enough to make his own choices.” It throws me. “Not that you’re a bad decision,” he adds.

“And none of it concerns you?” I ask. “The staggering age difference? That I’m currently living out of a van?” I’m not, just to clarify. I respect people who do it, but I like having a house and office to do work from. Charles is the family who will most likely object to me, at least to my face. Samuel is too . . . old to find much objection to me. I am very, very careful to not think about how he made a fourteen year old fall in love with him, because Mercy can take care of herself nowm and it wouldn’t be good if I beheaded Samuel over things decades ago.

“You’re different,” he says. “Leah was petty and loyal, but ultimately, she was exactly what Da should’ve had in a mate. I think she bored him. She hated Mercy, Samuel, and I.” I don’t say anything about that. I actually  _ liked _ Leah, and I think it takes two to break a mate bond.

“You scared her,” I murmur, meek as anything. “It mad her angry and petty. She hated you because Bran loves you more than he loved her.”

“And you are not burdened by such things.” After learning about the glitter bomb, I knew that Charles has a weird sense of humor (and a stronger sense of justice). I had a feeling that if Bran hadn’t sent Samuel away, Charles might’ve done something.

“I don’t need you to kiss my ass, and I’ll probably always be scared of you. Can’t do much about that.” I shrug, even though he can’t see me. “I like your da, and he likes me back. So, if I have to beat you into the ground, I will, but I’d rather not. Seems petty petty, no?” Charles and I wouldn’t mind fighting it out, if it came to it, and thanks to Adam, I might even win.

  
“Are you talking me into it or out of it?” he asks, with a wry tone. It’s rhetorical so I don’t answer. “I think you will be good together.” He hangs up.

“Uh.” I guess that went decently well. Charles and I are too much alike, but as long as I don’t have to kill him for being a dick, it’ll be fine.

“You sort my life out?” Bran asks, coming out of the house. He’s not limping but I don’t expect him to.

“Hmm.”

“Can you stop arranging cage matches between yourself and Charles?” he asks.

I grin. “Never.” I bump into him. “Hey. You all good?”

“Hey yourself, and yeah.” Bran wraps an arm around me.

“You know Charles knew for months, right?”

“I figured, but you asked me to try.”

“Thanks.”

“So now that everybody knows,” he says, “you’ll move in?”

“Nope. We’re still doing Stupid Long Distance Plan.” He tucks me further under him. Day after tomorrow, he’ll have to go back to Aspen.

“Hey, I can wait as long as you need,” he tells me. “Just don’t string me along.”

“I wouldn’t. I’m not.” I groan. “Fuck you’re gonna meet George.”

“George?” There’s a growl.

“The guy, my contact in London. He’s mated to Roe. Good guy.” I hesitate. “He helped me out when I was still getting used to people.” George isn’t family. I think he’s too off for that, but he’s family adjacent.

“I’d be delighted,” he says, and means it. I give him a suspicious look. Bran smiles at me. “I booked a hotel,” he says needlessly. Bran is good at knowing things without me having to say them, like if he stayed at my place, I would have a panic attack about it. So, hotel.

His room is nice, but not too nice. Bran and I have had money conversations and while he respects that I shop at Goodwill, he doesn’t get it. I get hives every time I think about the Marrok Pack’s finances. Anna told me about the four thousand dollar bracelet, so I’ve been very clear that anything over a hundred dollars would be returned, with the money donated to Cantrip.

I’ve had some run ins with Cantrip, and let me tell you, zero starts. Negative stars. I may or may not have hacked them.

“Hmm?” Bran asks me.

* * *

Bran’s POV

I watch Ash meander around the room, looking innocent.

“When’d you know?” she asks, still walking around the room. The room is very boring. There are probably rats somewhere, but money is a scary concept to Ash, so I’ve been accommodating. I  _ like  _ being accommodating to her. “When’d you stop fighting the bond?” she clarifies.

“Oh.” I know the answer of course. It just doesn’t reflect well on me, but so few things do. “Charles.” She blinks. “You didn’t like him-” She starts to protest- “you admired him maybe, respected him, but you didn’t like him. He was a reminder of what you could have been.” Ash nods, reluctant. “But you defended him before me, even though Charles scares you, even though you were terrified of me. You-” I struggle for the right words- “you who grew up not knowing how or when to take care of pack, protected somebody you felt was yours.” I shrug. “You who had more reason than most to hate Leah, defend her to me. You’re one of the few who do.”

Ash grimaces. “I think a lot broke between you too.” Ash doesn’t talk about it, but the witch tortured her with Leah. Leah was dominant, not extremely so, but dominant enough to feel pain about torturing a defenseless woman. Ash doesn’t talk bad about Leah; it delights me and makes me respect her. “And Charles . . . you’re right. I didn’t know how packs worked before Adam. I didn’t know they could be good things. I still don’t like that you used him to clean up your mess, but I accept that it was as much Charles’ decision as it was yours.” She smiles a bit. “You know, I think Anna likes me because of the whole fiasco, even though it made Charles growl at me more.”

“And you?” I ask.

“San Antonio.” I blink. I wasn’t even there. “I was an annoyance. No, I was. And you still sent people to help me, to help the wolves. You didn’t have to honor your word about protecting packs immigrating to America. I know now that you have to, because of who you are as a man and who you are as the Marrok, but I didn’t know it then. It took a while for your cause to sink in. But you and I, can never leave well enough alone when there’s somebody in trouble.” I disagree. Humans, I still have a hard time with. They live such short lives that I forget sometimes to give them their due. She shakes her head, catching my last thought. “Mike.”

I wince. I had been close to losing it then. I can remember throwing Charles off the porch because he’d gotten too close to Mike, and I couldn't handle it. Mike was my responsibility. Charles hadn’t held a grudge. Anna held it for him, and hadn’t bothered to invite me to pack dinners at their place. It was a deliberate snub, and one I hadn’t done anything about.

“Thank you for going.”

Ash shakes her head. “I didn’t like you. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to help you.”

“And keep me from killing everybody in North America.”

“Hm. That too. Nice perk, that was.” Ash still doesn’t believe that I was close to losing control.

Eric and I have been talking about it. A lot. He and I both had decided to start at the beginning of my long life, and flip to the end to work backwards. I like Eric, despite myself. He’s a forty year old human with bright blue hair and a no bullshit attitude. “Well, why do you think that, Bran?” is his favorite phrase. I’ve heard talk about the Marrok sending him a donation. He and I have also had long, long conversations about Ash, and how I’m not making her into another Leah, that I have fallen head over heels for her. It amuses Anna to no end that I love Ash. Every time she sees me, she gets that look in her eye like she can hear wedding bells. I have half a thought to elope, when it comes, if it comes.

“We don’t have to have sex,” I tell Ash, happy to confront her issue head on. She’d walked the whole length of the room, taken in the view, all without glancing at the bed. I sit on the kitchenette counter, lazily wiggling my feet. She squints her eyes at me. Normally, I’d let us both pretend that the elephant wasn’t in the room. “I’m sorry if I gave the impression that-”

“Oh you did that what with all the kissing,” she mutters, the back of her neck turning red. Ash, I know from probing a little, has had one night stands and fuck buddy relationships. I’m not jealous, well I am, but I’m happy that she was able to have that. Dating-I want to snort at the term- has not been part of her experience. One day, one day, I will take her to a fancy restaurant without her having a stroke, and without it being Cracker Barrel or Olive Garden. Although, Ash likes to pull my leg a fair bit.

I take a minute, unsure how serious she is. “I mean it,” I say, quietly. I meet her eyes before looking away. Ash, thanks to Adam, has started to really recognize body language, apart from ‘scary, dominant, piss them off and run away.’

“I know,” Ash says. She sighs a bit. “You know Adam tried to give me a sex talk?” she gives it a tone of humor, letting me in on the joke. I try to find it funny. I know Adam has sex, with my daughter. I do my best not to think about it.

“How was it?” I ask, channeling Eric.

“I . . . it was okay. Adam’s been good to me.” She pauses, and then sits on the bed, closer to me. I know I don’t scare her, not the way I scare most, but she’s still careful with me. It’s still shocking that Ash would more relaxed if I was wolf shape. “I don’t want to leave his pack,” she says, quietly, sadly.

“All right.” She definitely changed the topic there.

“Eventually, if we carry this thing through, I’ll have to, right?” I remind myself that Ash likes knowledge, but that doesn’t mean she became an expert in all things wolf overnight. And she is right. Being my mate, officially, would mean that she would have to be in the Marrok. She would also be tied to all wolves in America through our bond. Right now, the bond between us is fragile, strong, but faint. Most of it is from the witch, but some of it is me. No, that’s wrong. Most of it is me, and some of it is the witch.

  
  


“You’re right,” I say. “You could be bound to just me, but because of who I am, you would also feel my pack and all the packs in the United States. I think you would be safer if you were in the Marrok.”

“Safer?” There’s a wary note in her voice. Maybe we should have had this conversation sooner, before I took my shirt off.

“If you were attacked, you could call on pack magic.” She shudders. Ash is not a fan of pack magic, understandably. “We don’t have to do this,” I tell her, careful to not let emotion into my voice. She might like me, maybe even love me, but that doesn’t mean that-

“You are mine.” Her tone is possessive and out of the ordinary. “I will damn well deal with my trauma around pack magic, because you are mine.” I raise my eyebrows at her. “I am not giving you up. I like you. I love all this-” she gestures between us- “I love you, ya know?” Ash pauses for a long moment, and I wait her out. “I found the counter spell, last week.” I blink. She shoves a hand into her belt purse and pulls a slip of paper. “It’s easy,” Ash tells me. Her eyes are on the ground.

“You try it?” I ask, knowing her.

“Nope. Figured I’d tell you when you came to town, before we got all hot and heavy.” Ash flinches a bit. “I wasn’t-I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you or-”

“I know,” I interrupt. Personally, I doubt the counter spell will do anything. But I would never think that Ash was trying to take advantage of me. “You are very honorable.” Her ears turn red. “You are,” I say firmly. “I’m good with breaking the bond right now. I know you find it invasive.”

I’d done my best to mute the bond on my side. Ash was wary of taking her shirt off in front of me, let alone mentally dancing naked. I know that the pack bonds give her trouble.

Ash shakes her head. “Not a good enough reason to run away from you.” She smiles at herself. “Pretty sure there isn’t a good reason, or if there is, we haven’t found it yet.” Her smile turns to me. “I do want the damn witch out of our bond.” Ash shrugs. “I would be more than fine to stay bonded to you.”

“Mated,” I remind her, absently. Maybe Adam takes donations. He’s done good with his extenuating circumstances pack members. Ash’s therapist might take donations as well. “You sure?” I ask her. “I won’t be offended. I’m stable enough that I don’t need the bond.”

My wolf will always be scary. It’s the way I can keep a hundred alphas in check. I’ll always be scary, even if I woke up tomorrow pure human. However, thanks to Eric and others kicking me, I’m better. The wolf and I are at peace, as much at peace as Charles, if I were any judge. I won’t lose it if Ash breaks the bond, and leaves me.

Ash meets my eyes. “I could always find somebody else,” she murmurs, letting her eyes fall. “Asil is hot.” It’s that there’s truth in her voice that gets me up and moving. I walk carefully to the bed, and fall back on it, giving my belly to Ash. She throws a leg over me, and kisses me slowly, carefully. I  _ like _ it when she takes care of me.

Before Ash, nobody took care with me, or of me.

She gave me flowers for New Years, along with a raspberry pie.

Before long, all thoughts of flowers are gone from my head. I’m panting, but not moving. Ash grins down at me. Her eyes are light brown now, instead of her typical green. She rubs at her hair. “Right,” she says, with her voice mostly steady. “Spell breaking.” She pats my shoulder and dismounts. She pulls me up after her.

“Sure?” I ask her. She glares at me. “All right.”

“Stand there,” she orders me. Ash walks around me in a circle, hands clasped before her. She says a few words in a language I don’t know, and don’t particularly care to. The language is some bastardized version of Latin, some sort of witch’s tongue. I can tell that my eyes have turned yellow. PTSD, as Eric would like to tell me. Personally, I think it’s experience speaking here.

But once she completes the seventh circle, I feel the witch’s touch leave our bond. Everything Ash pours into me, and likewise.

I can feel her terror that I will leave her, that she won’t be enough, or that I’ll be dissatisfied with her. I feel her love and hope for me, for us. I feel  _ her _ , her  _ spirit _ . I hiss, breathing it all in. I can feel Adam through her, and it relaxes something in me. I can tell that she’s terrified of sex, of being married to me, but she  _ wants to _ in a way that she doesn’t know quite what to do with. I look up at her, meeting her eyes.

Her eyes are light amber now, wolf eyes. I meet them. “You are mine,” I say, firm and soft. “Because you chose to be, when you had no reason to be. You chose  _ me _ .”

“You are mine,” she growls back. “You are mine, and you damn well better exercise your demons before I do it for you.”

I kiss her then. Turns out, the sex is not easy, but it is fantastic. For her and for me. She assertive, seeking her pleasure in me, and giving it back. I feel her climax for a third time as I do.

Exhausted we lay there, in the aftermath. “That’s wasn’t just magic,” she tells me. Ash wraps an arm around me. I tighten mine around her’s back. I feel ridden and put away wet. My wolf settles down, satisfied that Ash is now our mate, our partner for eternity.

“I know.” I turn her so she lands on top of me. I relax more fully, delighted in the weight of her. I do my best to not compare my previous mates to Ash, but it has been a long time since I’ve delighted in cuddling.

“I’m gonna have to get Adam a fruit basket,” she mutters, only a little irritated. I grin. I can feel her irritation. Clearly. Neither of us are shying away from each other. I want to stay here forever.

I run fingers down her back. “Not right now.”

“Nope.”

“Anything else we should talk about?”

“Long term plans,” she says. Ash tucks her head into my collar bone and goes limp against me. 

She still hasn’t taken off her glamour, not all the way. I can see some of her scars, but I feel more criss-crossing her back. I know Samuel talked to her about cutting them away so that fresh skin could grow. I knew she was thinking about it, but I like her scars. They are the mark of a survivor. I have one across my ribs that I’m partial too. In another hundred years or so, it will fade.

“Hm. You’re staying with Adam for a bit.”

“Yeah. You don’t mind, right?”

“The fae might, but we’ve done well in negotiations. Soon, I can bring Adam back into the fold if he wants.” I shrug. “The fae largely ignore you anyway.”

“Hm. Wise fae.” Ash is terrifying, for all that she likes to say that she just has a touch of plant magic. Her magic smells of green things, of the forest and wild. It always smells of pine and the first snowfall to me.

“Right. So, it shouldn’t be a problem if you stay with Adam for a bit. Long term.” I let my voice trail off.

“Right. Long term. I’ll get over the Marrok eventually.” She’d come close to throwing Asil a time or two, but I think they got along all right. “I’m still going to work cases,” she says.

“I know. I know I married your work as well as you.”

“Woah now.”

“Ash, it is marriage we’re talking here.”

“I know. Just. I know it’s marriage, but it sounds all serious and adult like we’re going to go to IKEA tomorrow or something. Pick out a new sofa.”

“You’d buy a new sofa?” I ask in a mock hopeful voice. The irony is that I don’t put a lot of stock in material objects. Music, people, memories, those are things that matter. I also don’t see the point of living like a monk, not after all this time.

“Nope.” Ash twitches out a shrug. “I like living simply. Lord-”

“One god?”

“Hush. I like living simply because I can pack up and leave.” She wiggles a bit more. “Adam’s been on me to renew my lease, or move in with one of the pack. Sherwood. He thinks we’d be good for each other.”

“Sherwood Post?”

“Yup.”

“Huh.” Like I said, Adam does good with broken. I’d given him to Mercy after all. Well, that’d taken a little blackmail, and some scary monsters. I think Ash has spent too much time by herself, although for good reasons.

“Yeah. I think I’m gonna do it.” Ash draws up the blankets over us, and takes off the glamour, now that I can’t see her. I run my hands over her back, drawing her closer.

“I think it’d be good for you. I guess the defense lessons are going well?” I give Adam his due. He gave Ash a job, one suited to her skills and desires. Last I heard, he’d convinced her to get licensed.

“Yup. I flipped Adam last week.” I can feel her grin against my shoulder. “Can’t let these dominant types get the upper hand, you understand.”

From what I know and have sparred with Anna, it’s hard to fight an omega. Your wolf is telling them not to hurt, and they’re easing the wolf so only the human is in the driver’s seat. Ash wouldn’t be happy if she hadn’t flipped Adam when he was fully fighting her. “Well done,” I say, proud of her.

“Hmm. I almost had a panic attack after.” There’s a growl in her voice when she says, “But at least I did it.” I squeeze her closer.

Ash doesn’t have any kind of problem attacking monsters outside of her pack. We took down a damn fae today. I’ve heard from Charles about the troll. It’s people you love who can hurt you in new ways.

“Proud of you.” I run my fingers threw her hair. It’s cut brutally close to her head, about an inch long. She told me that long hair gets in the way. I like running my fingers over it.

“Come on, shower.” She pulls me up. We wash up and then have to wash again because we get a little distracted.

Slowly, slowly we fall asleep. I wake before the phone goes off. Ash leaps out of bed, tugging on a shirt, and answering the phone with one sleeves empty. “Cassidy.”

“I need you here, at my place.” It’s Samuel. I shuck my pants on and start looking for my boots. Ash tosses me my sweatshirt. She belts on her sword and belt purse. From the tone of his voice, it wasn’t just Ash he needed.

“We’ll be there in ten.” Ash tosses me the keys as we get done the hotel steps. I’m not as paranoid as Ash. I got a room on the fourth floor. She has a point, I think, as we hit the bottom step. We take the car I rented, which puts me happily in the driver seat.

Ash calls Ariana. “Hey, your mate just called me-”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Congratulations.”

“The fae want the child.” War. It means war if they try to take Samuel’s child, or if they take Ariana.

“Fuck.” Ash says it, but I add a few choice words in Welsh. I put my foot closer to the floor, edging out the speed limit. “We’ll be there shortly.”


	10. I found a love, to carry more than just my secrets (To carry love, to carry children of our own)

**(Ash’s POV)**

I call George. “Hey, you know that Thing that we all agreed I wouldn’t do?” I ask him, not bothering to say hello.

“The ‘Ash shalt not go to war with the fae’ thing?”

“Yup.”

“Shite.”

“Yup.” I hang up. Bran doesn’t ask or look at me, but I can feel the question. “The fae and I are very careful to not pay too much attention to the other. The same way that two dominant wolves ignore each other. I work cases for them sometimes, and they leave me alone for finding some of their criminals.”

“You hunt fae.” I don’t tell Bran all of my cases. There’s confidentiality first of all, and second of all . . . I don’t need him smoothing things over. I guess this will be another change and thing to argue over. It’s terrible, but I love arguing with the man. His face gets all wrinkled, and we hollar at each other. I like Bran in a temper, which is a terrible thing.

“No. I hunt child eaters, rapists, and wife beaters when I can. It doesn’t matter much what shape they take.” Anna dealt with her trauma in healthy ways, and becoming the de facto human translator for wolves. I dealt with mine by getting even, and a little bit more.

“Good.” My mate’s voice is a low growl. He’ll worry about my safety till the day I kick it, but I figure it’s fair as it goes both ways. “What will they try?”

“I figure they’ll attack their home, and try to take Ariana. They know Charles. They know me. magic born wolves are scary things.”

Only a few-Adam, Bran, and Charles-really knew how scary I was. But fae are nearly infertile with each other, and human halflings are normally human. I knew that Tad was an odd man out. Speaking of, I called Tad.

“Hey, the fae are kicking up a storm at Samuel’s. You might want to lay low.”

“Be there in thirty.”

I then, in a fit of realization, called Adam. “Hauptman,” he barks. It’s 3am, and he’d clearly been asleep.

“Does Samuel count as your pack?”

“He’s Mercy’s.”

“Right. And through you, he’s pack. The fae want his child.” I didn’t smell a kid on Ariana yesterday, but that was most likely why they invited both of us to dinner.

“We’ll be there ASAP.” I can hear him shuffling around in the background. Samuel may be terrible sometimes, and definitely deserving of a few hexes, but we all loved him. I’d bet Adam would have trouble keeping the whole pack from showing up on their doorstep.

Bran pulls into their driveway, easing his mustang that costs more than a house in between two other very expensive cars. I hop out. One of the cars I don’t know. Ariana can and does drive, but there’s a third car in the street that does not belong. It smells of fae. I bounce up to the door, pulling on a bright and happy mask. Bran stays a step behind me. He’s terrified, and happy to have me dealing with whatever fae is on the other side of the door, rather than risk an incident.

I knock. “Hey, Sam, I heard you wanted a word,” I call out. The door opens up. It’s Samuel. He’s tense, more tense than I’ve ever seen him, and I’ve given him a lot to stress about before. His eyes fall on Bran, and he relaxes a bit. Bran has that effect, so I don’t tell his kid that Bran is worried.

“Come in.” We walk past Samuel. Ariana is there, along with Beauclaire. I blink. The fae and I have not to meet, but it’s hard to miss when a few years ago the news reels kept playing the decapitating he’d done over and over again.

“I’m Ash,” I say, not giving my last name. I stick out a hand and shake his. “Good work on that senator’s kid.” He blinks. I can feel Bran pinching his nose, but I figure if the fae is here at this hour, it was to warn Samuel and Ari. I drop my glamour. I need him to understand what threats will be made here. “They are under my protection, if they need it.” I wave an arm at them. “You can tell the Grey Lords that.”

“Ash Cassidy.” Beauclaire looks over my scars, not lingering long. “I’ve heard of you. I knew your mother.” I start. I’ve looked long and hard, but I haven’t found anything on her. Fae don’t lie, though the ‘can’t’ isn’t always true. “She was a great and terrible woman. I am sorry for what happened to you.” I clench my teeth. He bows to me, a dip of his waist, keeping his eyes steady on mine. “Her name was Conall. Strong wolf. I think they were going for irony when they made you. Your father-”

“I killed him.” I do not flinch. “And we are not here to talk about me, but I appreciate your information.” I gesture at Ariana and Sam. “I will not let the Grey Lords take their child.”

“They would risk war,” he says. It’s not agreement. Beauclaire is powerful, but he’s made more enemies in recent years.

“I would give my life to protect their child,” I say firmly and clearly. “I-we-do not want a war.” Samuel’s barely keeping a lid on it, and Bran goes to stand next to his son. Before then Beauclaire wasn’t paying much attention to him.

“Bran Cornick.” Beauclaire blinks slowly. “You would risk your wolves for your unborn grandchild?”

“I would. I would treat war.”

“You would bring all the wolves in America into a war?”

Bran doesn’t hesitate. “I would take all those willing, yes.” That’s a threat. Not at Beauclaire. I’m getting the feeling that the old fae isn’t stupid enough to pick a fight with Bran over what may or may not come. 

But any wolf in America would die for Bran, for pack. It’s what makes them werewolves, that bond. And children ought to be safe, all wolves hold that, even a fae’s child would be made safe. Because if the fae can take a wolf’s child, take a Cornick’s child, then none of their children are safe.

I breath out. Surely, the fae will not be that stupid. Samuel settles a little, trying to relax. Ariana reaches back and holds his hand. “You do not want me as an enemy,” she says.

We hear Adam’s truck pull up. I open the door to Mercy and Adam. Adrien’s not with them, but they wouldn’t have brought him without knowing the situation.

“I will tell the Grey Lords to be more wise,” Beauclaire says, “but they don’t listen to me anymore.” I hear Tad pull up, and text him to stay outside before his feet hit the pavement. There’s no need for everybody to get angry here.

“It is possible you need a demonstration of power then, if you are not sure you can be convincing,” I say, calm, calm before I do something stupid. I lead the way out of Sam’s house, and walk to the columbia, far enough away that this won’t disturb any housing or people. Everybody follows me out, not saying anything. They all follow me a street over, not saying a word. Adam was happy enough to leave me to deal with the fae, I reckon. He would soon change his mind.

“What are you going to do?” Bran asks softly at my shoulder. I hear Tad join us as well.

“Something very, very stupid, but should sort out some traffic problems, and make sure that the Grey Lords never again think of threatening a child.” I pull off my boots. I don’t wear socks. Nasty things. I squish my feet down into the dirt. The columbia is wide here and deep. I slice my hand on my pocket knife, digging the knife so that blood will continue to drip into the earth. “Mam Fawr, clywwch eich plentyn, adeiladwch bont i mi dros eich dŵr.”  _ Great Mother, hear your child, build me a bridge over your water _ .

Great roots grow out, spiraling over the waters until they become a rope bridge. More vines shoot up from the river, becoming support beams. Slowly, over the course of ten minutes, the bridge solidifies, until it looks like it can hold a steady stream of cars and buses in four lanes. There’s even enough room for pedestrians and a bike lane. It is a statement. The fae have destroyed two bridges in the Tri-Cities.

“Hot damn,” Tad says quietly.

I look at Beauclaire. He doesn’t looked freaked out, but his stance is lose and ready. “Tell the Grey Lords, that all werewolf children, human or otherwise, are under my protection.” My voice is calm, collected, and not at all showing that I want to dry heave and pass out from the magic and blood loss.

“I will do that.” His voice is also calm and relaxed, but a bit more respectful. I meet his eyes, not cowed by his dominance. “You do her well, your mother. She would never have stood for a child being hurt.”

“Be well,” I tell the fae. We watch him walk back to his car and drive away.

“This is really going to fuck up my commute,” Sam says with a sigh. There’s already a news helicopter.

“Hm.”

“Thank you,” he tells me.

I shake my head. “I’m part of Adam’s pack. It is my responsibility to honor the neutral zone agreement.” I like  _ Star Trek _ .

“I’ll be sure to phrase it like that,” Adam says dryly. He’s not mad. He understands that children are to be protected. “You think they were behind Jesse,” he says, suddenly.

“Very odd that they took her to England.” I shrug. “I wasn’t sure until a minute ago. We can’t do anything about it now.” I sigh at the bridge. “That might’ve been an over reaction.” We watch a human tentatively poke at it with his foot. “It should be good enough for traffic, held up by magic and all.” The vines are still going. I snap my finger, and say firmly, “so mote it be.” The magic ends. The bridge halts. It’d only been doing decorative things anyway.

“You’re more powerful than Beauclaire,” Mercy says.

I shake my head. “Nope. Different magic. I come from the forest. It likes me.”

“Oh yes,” my mate murmurs, “you’re just a harmless plant mage, couldn't rustle up a storm no make no how.”

“Right,” I agree. It’s entirely possible that I should stop giving Bran so much shit for acting like a photography major. “The Grey Lords won’t tell anybody who did it, because they don’t need to scare the fae. You should warn Zee that people might think it was him. But strange things have been happening all over. It’ll die down in a month or two when Mercy gets into trouble.”

“I-I resemble that remark.” It’s lucky that Adam won’t get grey hair, not with both me and Mercy at work.

I lock hands with Bran, and raise his hand up so I can kiss it. “Thank you,” I tell him.

“Hey, I try to curb my protectiveness. Besides, you’re better with the fae than I am. Beauclaire and I just would’ve talked circles around each other.”

“I didn’t know the fae felt guilty about me. That’s all it was. We probably lost the surprise factor with the bridge,” I add, looking to Adam who’s better at chess than I ever want to be.

He shakes his head. “It does well for them to be more wary of us. Too much and they’re try to eliminate us. Too little, and they won’t respect our law. Besides, we signed an accord with them.”

“I forgot that. I knew you could claim Samuel as pack.”

“You wouldn’t,” Sam says firmly. He doesn’t want to be in a pack. Rough.

I glare at him. “I am mated to your da; that makes you mine. I am of Hauptman’s pack. Mercy could claim you as pack as well.” Samuel doesn’t want the responsibility of people. Too bad. He has a kid on the way. “Also, seriously, congratulations to the both of you,” I say to him and his mate. “Children are blessings.” Samuel looks close to panicking again. Bran is tense too. I knew his first mate died from birthing Charles. I think for a minute, but I can give them this. “My mother would not have had any problem where it not for being held captive. She was able to swift her lower half when the baby tried to change shape through her glamour.”

“Oh. Ooooh.” Glamorous can be made to feel real and made to feel real is close enough to real.

“I would not have told Samuel what I knew if I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t pose a risk to you,” I tell her. I look at Mercy and Adam. “This will need to be a closely guarded thing, at least until the baby is born.”

Adam nods, considering it. He’s careful with his body language, because of Sam. I put a little more omeganess into the world, and watch the other wolves relax. Mercy grins at me. “We’ll need to have a watch on the house,” Adam continues.

“I can stay,” I say. “Bran, you better get back before the pack misses you, and start cleaning up this SNAFU on your end.” I groan. “You think Beauclaire will keep silent on you being here?”

“Maybe. He likes you.” I look at him. “He does. He won’t say anything unless he’s asked, and why would the Marrok be in town?” Bran leads me into a hug, and kisses my cheek. “I got my phone. Call me when you can.”

I grip his shoulders and hold him at arms length. He meets my eyes. “Don’t be a stranger,” I joke. I kiss him lightly on the lips. “Better get going, long drive.” I watch him turn and stride to the door before yelping, “hate to see you go, but love to watch you leave.” He grins at me before closing the door behind him.

I meet Adam’s face without flinching, thrusting my chin up. Adam isn’t put off. “You’re staying in my pack?”

“Yep. For the time right now. I love Bran, but I can’t move to Aspen right now. Besides, it seems like you guys might need me. It’d be a shame to build a bridge and have some nutter fae burn it down.”

“Careful,” Samuel says lightly.

I ignore him. “You have somebody besides your mate check you over?” I ask.

“I think we are going to call Zee and then go back to the house,” Adam says while Ariana is considering my silent offer. “You staying?” he asks me. I nod. They shuffle off, and pull Tad with them.

“The babe is fine, from what I can tell,” I say to them both. “Sam, could I have a word with you?” I very bluntly steer him into a room, shut the door, and put up a spell to keep Ariana from listening in.

“Wah-” He meant to ask ‘What?’ but as I’d pinned him to the wall with a pocket knife to his throat, some of the letters were lost. I meet his eyes. I am one of four werewolves in American who can do it, and I do it without flinching. “Ash, what are you doing?” Sam’s acting like he’s used to being nearly stabbed. He’s also not trying to defend himself, probably because he thinks I won’t kill him. Oh, how very wrong he is.

“Look, I like you, doc. But I swear on all I find holy if you are only with Ariana because she can bear children-” I pause so we can both think about Mercy and how a two thousand year old being made a fourteen year old kid fall in love with him- “I will cut-kill you. Damn be the consequences.” I snarl at him. His eyes turn bright yellow. “Because that woman is brave and powerful, but if you hurt her, I’ll scatter your ashes across the states so that you never find rest.” My eyes are wolf eyes, and we gaze at each other, monster to monster. “Are we clear?” I growl.

“Very.” I step back, letting him fall the two inches back to the carpet. I pocket my knife. “Why?” he asks me. “If you killed me, Da would have no choice but to-”

“I said all wolf children are under my protection. Be terrible if I didn’t hold to my word. Besides, I like your mate.”

“And you’re still pissed about Mercy.” Sam’s weary of it, I can tell.

“And I’m still pissed about Mercy.” Sam was broke then, when he targeted a child. Fine. He got redemption and everything worked out for the better. Mercy found Adam, and they’re a good fit.

“I love Ari.” He says it like the sun rises, like it’s always been and always will be that it’s so obvious that no further explanation is needed. “I am overjoyed that she is pregnant, but that is not all that she is to me. I’m terrified, Ash.” My eyes have gone back to hazel, but his haven’t. He is terrified. “I know what complications we face more than anybody. She could die. We haven’t. After you told me, we’ve used protection and done everything we could, because we thought the risk was too great. And now?” He shivers. “Now, she might abort because of the risk. I almost hope she does,” he says quietly, sadly. He’s leaning against the wall, so it’s the only thing holding him up.

“Sam.” We look up at Ariana who’s slipped in when we haven’t been paying attention. I’d forgotten to lock the door. She shakes her head. “I’m not aborting.” She crosses the room to stand in front of her mate. “I want this child. You want this child.” She looks at me. “What can we expect?”

Werewolf and fae relations aren’t common. They don’t like each other. I was the only one of my kind.

“There shouldn’t be any complications. I can lend you my magic to make it easier if need be. I think it’ll be fine. I thought that when I told Sam, or I wouldn’t have said anything about it.” I wouldn’t have. I would’ve let it die with me, if I had any doubt of it. I look at him. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you more, and instead told you cryptic nonsense.”

“You wouldn’t have told me?” Samuel asks.

“No. I would’ve told you something about how the pregnancy can lead to death, and it can.” I look at them. “It can, but it’s a very low possibility.” Samuel’s still scared. He’s holding his mate’s hand lightly.

“We talked about it,” she says. She grips his hand back. “We-” Samuel tenses- “decided that the risk was worth it.” It wasn’t just Sam who really wanted a kid. “You said the risk is low?” I nod, and sit down on the couch, letting them have more space.

“It should be. The real danger is that the kid is werwolf, like Charles, and tries to shift in the womb.” They nod. They’re not stupid, and have thought of this. “I can work out some spells that will allow you to shift with the kid. It’s not great, but if it comes to that, we can do it because you’re powerful. Likely though, the kid won’t shift. I didn’t until several months after I was born. Charles?” I ask Samuel.

“Same.”

“Good. Then there should be nothing to worry about. Apart from the entire supernatural world wanting the kid,” I add.

“But you’re taking care of it.” There’s a growl in her voice. Ariana isn’t happy that I stepped in before she could defend herself.

“The Grey Lords could take you, if they worked together, and this would give them motivation to do that. I don’t want that to happen. Me fucking with Beauclaire seemed like the easiest solution.”

“You painted a target on your back,” she tells me like it’s new information.

I shrug. “Yeah. Well. I’m good for it. Besides, you’re gonna deal with me sleeping on the couch for the next nine months, so I wouldn’t be too grateful.”

“That seems excessive,” Ari starts, but Sam’s already nodding in agreement with me.

“Seems fine,” Sam tells me, happy to have somebody else guard his mate.

“Great. I’ll sleep on your couch, if that’s okay?”

“There’s a guestbe- the couch is fine,” he says when he sees my face. I smile and nod, grateful that Sam doesn’t ask any more questions. I get handed a blanket and pillow. I curl up on the couch after they leave, and try to go back to sleep. “Oh,” Sam says from the hallway. “Congrats on your mating.” I turn beet red.

Apparently the shower hadn’t been enough to wash off the smell of sex. I thought we’d all been ignoring that Bran and I had showed up in yesterday’s clothes and very clearly doing the early morning walk back.

I don’t know when it clicked for me. I think it was the fight with the fae. Whenever it was, I’d given up running, and chose Bran. I could’ve walked away. This isn’t some gothic romance novel where I had to end up with the man, you know. I could’ve broken the bond.

I text Mercy in the morning to let her know that until me and Adam work out a rotating schedule I won’t be working at the garage. That means the pack will be spread out thinner, because if Tad can’t cover the garage, Mercy either won’t work or some other pack member will have to be there. It sucks, but right now, Ari’s a worse risk.

“Charles, I don’t really want to do this right now-”

“It’s me,” Anna says. “I broke my phone and well.” I relax a bit. “So, you banged Bran.”

I choke. It’s 7am, Anna. I’d been up half the night, doing the banging but still. “I’m gonna need to find religion,” I mutter.

“He’s swaggering around, all happy with himself,” she continues as if I haven’t spoken. “It’s a good thing you’ve decided to go public with us, because I don’t think he would’ve been able to hide it.”

“Swaggering around huh?”

“Well, as much as he does.” Anna realizes that I must be unsure about it all. “Anybody outside of me, Asil, and Charles wouldn’t know.”

“So everybody.” I groan a bit.

“Everybody,” she admits.

I groan a little more, but I knew that I’d be living under a microscope. I can deal with that, really. Really, I promise myself. I let my head wack against the wall. “It’s all right. I figured they’d find out eventually.”

“They like you,” she reassures. “The whole pack is happy that Bran is happy.” She hesitates. Like Charles, like Bran, they try not to talk shit about Leah. I hate it. I like Leah, and I wouldn’t speak ill of her anyway. I do not like that Bran is still hesitate, waiting for me to run away, but the only thing that will take care of that is time.

“What?” I ask.

“I haven’t seen him this happy. Ever.”

“Oh.” I know I make him happy. Heck, I really learned that last night, if we’re being pervy. Just so we’re very, very clear, the sex was fantastic. Like fantastic, fantastic. I know we did the fade to black and all, but Bran very much knows what he’s doing and is patient with a little rough. “I mean, Bran makes me happy too.” I could feel the bond in the back of my mind, not invasive at all. Which sounds terrible, but it feels great.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah. Yeah,” I repeat with more confidence. “I’ll call my therapist later. I’m freaking out about how much I’m not freaking out.” I pull a little at the bond, just enough to know that Bran’s back in Aspen and talking with a wolf. I calm down a little.

“And you’re . . . you’re fine with being Bran’s mate?” she asks, which fair. I’d only been fighting it for the past year and a half. “You’re not worried about being his mate?”

“Nope.” I can feel my certainty in my bones. Bran is my mate. I grin a bit. “All it took was killing a fae together.” It hadn’t been the sex that had made the bond snap in place, but fighting. The bond hadn’t changed when I broken the witch’s final hold, but settled instead. Although, most of the witch’s hold had been broken by our collective efforts over the months. “Bran’s mine, for better or worse.”

The next nine months tested that statement. I did continue to camp out at Ari’s. Samuel, having accumulated enough wealth for ten lifetimes, paid me. I would’ve done it for free, but well, fae can be finicky about debts, even among friends. He also felt guilty for giving me a panic attack every other week.

Bran stopped by when he could, but it was a long nine months. It’s the longest I stayed in a city without leaving for cases. My feet were very, very itchy by the end of it. I did set up a zoom consultation. I do not care for zoom. I do not care for zoom at all, and most definitely not during 2020. You may quote me on that.

The fae, apart from a few early incidents, stayed the heck away from Samuel’s. Bran had a meeting which boiled down to “Ash is scary, but I’m scarier, and that is My Grandchild.” As soon as the kid, a girl, was born, I packed up my van and left for a month.

“I’m not running,” I told Bran when he called.

“I know.”

“All right. I just. I need a break for a second.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m still not going to move to Aspen.” He waits me out. I can hear Samuel and Ariana in the background, cooing over the kid. I did wait a day to make damn well sure that everybody was fine, and Ariana could take care of herself. “I just . . . what if this whole thing blows up? What if you love me too much, and something goes wrong, and I die and you kill everybody?”

“Eric-” I grin - “yeah, Eric, said that I deserve to be happy. You make me happy. You bring me joy.” A good mate wouldn’t make a joke about that.

“Something to be said about your taste.”

“Hm. I bring you joy.”

“Yeah. You do.” He grins, a full faced smile that’s far different from his political ones. “But that doesn't negate my points.”

“If you want to break the bond, we can do that.” I raise my eyebrows at him. “I’m serious. I don’t want you to feel pressured into this. If you need to do that to feel safe, that’s fine. It’ll be fine if you reject me, or I reject you, or it just doesn’t work out. I wasn’t in a good place when you found me,” he says, his voice going soft. “I’m better now. My wolf and I are at peace. You’ve been in my head. The mate bond isn’t holding him back.”

“You’d break it?”

“On my honor.”

“And everybody would be fine?”

“I swear to you.”

“Well, all right then.” He blinks. “I wasn’t-that wasn’t a manipulation. I swear, hands down. But that helps with my fears.”

“You’d still do it though?”

“Yeah, yeah I would. I love you, you giant git.”

“Hm.” Bran’s too happy to speak. He picks me up, spinning me around. My feet go flying, and I can’t help but laugh.

Adam helped me find  _ a _ home, but Bran was  _ my  _ home. I kiss him fiercely. We’d never have peaceful lives, but I doubt we wanted them, and these lives were ours in a way that was so beautiful.

Bran plopped me down on the ground, clearly not wanting to let me go. For a moment, and I mean a moment, everything is at peace. Well, we can’t have that. “Hey,” I say, “I guess it’s too early to talk about kids, huh?”

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I realized how to clear up my shitty formatting, so one day this will look better.  
> 2) Thank you! Thank you for all the kudos and comments and support!  
> 3)I'm aware of the cliff hanger ending, and yeah I did start writing a sequel to this/already technically have one that kinda works because this was a rewrite of an earlier work.
> 
> But really and sincerely thank you for all the support! And as it stands, this is really the end of this fic. It made sense to me because things would keep happening, life would keep happening for Ash and Bran.


End file.
